Telestream’s Aurora system helped cut judging time from several weeks to just a week at China’s Golden Sail Awards.

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Aurora: Helped judges at the Golden Sail Awards assess content

With more than 500 hours of HD, UHD and HDR format content that needed to be assessed and quality control tested by the judges at China’s Golden Sail Awards, automated QC using Telestream’s Aurora system helped cut judging time from several weeks to just a week. Hosted annually by China’s National Radio and Television Administration (SARFT), the Golden Sail Awards are the most prestigious honours in the nation’s broadcast industry, with TV stations across the country submitting programme content to be judged for overall appeal and technical quality.

Subjective judging, by a panel of Golden Ears & Eyes, accounts for 80% of the score, and then a team of experts from China’s national broadcasters, who formed the Golden Sail judge committee, subject the content to rigorous technical examination to confirm the results. This year, SARFT used Telestream Aurora in conjunction with Telestream Waveform Monitors to interrogate the content.

Using Aurora, the judges were able to test and confirm the quality of the HD, UHD and HDR content in a fraction of the time that the process took in previous years. What the experts discovered was that for more than 95% of the entries, the Aurora measurements were consistent with the Waveform Monitor measurements – this synchronicity enabled them to assess much more content in a far shorter time with better consistency.

For Telestream, this was a major opportunity to prove the value of its technology to the Chinese broadcast industry, and the company made several enhancements to Aurora based on feedback from SARFT. For example, a test summary was added to the first page of the QC report and Telestream added an automated process for creating job XML files for the content packages.

Besides providing the equipment, Telestream supported the project with a team of specialist engineers that helped familiarise and assist the Golden Sail judge committee engineers throughout the technical testing procedures.

“In China, the Golden Sail Awards are incredibly important – on a par with the Emmy Technical Awards. The winners receive a massive boost to their careers and the winning TV stations are recognised as leaders in their industry,” said Charlie Dunn, senior VP, Telestream’s Tektronix Video Business Unit.

“We are fully committed to supporting the evolution of UHD and HDR production tools and also to support the dynamic, rapidly evolving Chinese broadcast industry. In particular, we are eager to talk to individual broadcasters that are targeting the UHD/HDR business opportunity,” he added.