At an open event to mark its first anniversary as a not-for-profit membership organisation on March 30th, the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) – the industry collaboration between ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC –  revealed it sees major disruption ahead in how media content is created and delivered.

DPP was reporting on a successful first year of operation, with over 160 companies and organisations already choosing to become members. In 12 months, the DPP has defined four new technical specifications, updated its much-used metadata app for file delivery, published eight new reports and guides, and staged 18 events.

“The expert input of our membership has made us more productive than ever,” said DPP Managing Director Mark Harrison. “Our members have a real appetite to contribute to insights that drive change, and help them make smart investment decisions.”

As it enters its second year, the DPP will be focusing on international interoperability and Internet-enabled production. The DPP has partnered with the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) to deliver a ground breaking new common file delivery specification for North America, to be unveiled at the NAB show in Las Vegas on April 19th. It has also just initiated a new work stream to define an international mastering format.

At the first anniversary event, the focus was on Internet-enabled production – and its potential to disrupt well-established production cultures and business models. The DPP is currently conducting a major survey of how such production tools and services are impacting media creation.

“The television production model has changed remarkably little in the last few decades,” said Harrison, himself a former producer. “But the proliferation of video across all sectors, the emergence of new digital agencies, changing consumer consumption habits and the growing maturity of web-based production services could all prove hugely disruptive to the established model.”

The tide of change is reflected by the latest companies to join the DPP. In the last few weeks alone, the following companies have all become DPP Members:

• global innovator in sound and vision Dolby Laboratories
• cloud-based editing specialists Forscene
• global electronics group Rohde & Schwarz
• cloud-based ad delivery service Adtoox
• alternative advanced digital infrastructure provider Jiscom
• new cloud post production platform Sundog Media Toolkit
• SaaS based infrastructure management provider SDVI

“The DPP is at the forefront of international efforts to standardise file delivery specifications having already made incredible progress in the UK,” noted Lawrence Kaplan, CEO of SDVI. “As media supply chains continue to migrate to the cloud this effort will become more critical, and both SDVI and the DPP share a common vision of where the industry is headed.”

The DPP”s review of content creation disruption, The Production Revolution, will be released in September 2016.

Categories: Articles, Production, Work flow