Streamlining Photo Publishing For A News Agency
When photographers work at sporting events, the workflow to get a shot from the photojournalist’s camera to the new agency’s website can be quite involved. Typically, the picture first gets transmitted from a Wi-Fi enabled digital camera to a local computer...
Client
Our client was one of the largest national news agencies.
Background
When photographers work at sporting events, the workflow to get a shot from the photojournalist’s camera to the new agency’s website can be quite involved. Typically, the picture first gets transmitted from a Wi-Fi enabled digital camera to a local computer, for example, the photographer’s own laptop. From there, it is uploaded to the agency’s server, where the photo editor further processes it as needed and uploads to the website or makes it otherwise available for consumption.
Challenge
The agency’s existing photo solution had a couple of serious drawbacks. First of all, the system only supported a single photojournalist per event. Additionally, it was too slow: the process form the click of the shutter to the image being available on the site took 8 minutes. First Line was contracted to develop the new product called Blitz, to replace the existing system.
Solution
First Line’s engineers designed and implemented a brand new photo management system specifically geared towards large-scale events. The system supports multiple users (photojournalists), whose cameras send images in real time, as they are being taken, to a local server. Once the images are on the local computer, the system generates lightweight previews that are immediately available to the photo editor. The editor can then select the images for publication, manipulate them (crop, rotate, etc.), after which the original, high-resolution images are transferred and can be published with a single click. Additionally, since the new system supports multiple photographers, the editor can quickly search and select the incoming images by metadata, such as the photographer’s name or location.
Results
The new system was tested at multiple sporting events throughout the country in preparation for the ultimate test. The time required to publish a photo has been reduced from 8 minutes to 90 seconds, allowing for seamless timely publication of many thousands of gorgeous photos as our client worked to provide round-the-clock multimedia coverage.
Blitz was also used to support the Second Screen app, one of the agency’s most advanced products created together with Channel One. Second Screen allowed TV viewers to receive extra statistics, replays, still shots and other pertinent information on their smartphone or tablet in addition to the main coverage of Olympic events as they were watching them on their TVs. Blitz was used to feed still shots to Second Screen in real time.
Team size: 5
Total effort: 24 person-months
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David Tedford has over 20 years of sales experience within the IT/software industry. He excels at sales, business development, channel development, sales cycle management, negotiations, and sales team management.
As the head of business development for First Line Software, Vladimir heads up business development in Western Europe and Russia.
Vladimir began his career in IT in 2002, when, as a student of Faculty of Automation of Computer Science of the First Electrotechnical University (ETU “LETI”), he began his work at The Morfizpribor Central Research Institute (CRI). Vladimir joined the StarSoft team (predecessor of First Line Software) in 2004 as a Junior Software Developer. As he gained experience with more and more projects, he was promoted to leadership roles.
The Hague, Netherlands
Richard has over 15 years of sales and account management expertise in the IT and Tech sector. He has worked on many outsourcing engagements with global companies.
Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
David is a business development professional with more than 20 years’ experience as a specialist in the acquisition of partnerships and IT/software services for associations, not-for profits and corporations in Australia, New Zealand and USA. He has specific expertise in the healthcare, legal and hospitality industries.