Forbidden Takes On Sports And News Via Strategic Partnerships

Thanks to new partnerships and integrations with those companies, Forbidden Technologies has made its flagship product, FORscene — already the world’s most advanced cloud-based video-editing platform — even more robust for those who report news and sports. And those users now have direct access to FORscene through the products they already use.
At the same time, by partnering with companies whose products and technologies are proven in the news- and sports-broadcasting markets, Forbidden has been able to broaden its access to that sector. According to Forbidden CEO Stephen Streater, it’s all part of a strategy to access new markets and achieve growth through partnerships.
“Forming relationships with these companies and integrating with their products, all of which already have a significant presence in the world of news and sport technology and broadcast, make FORscene even more accessible and attractive to that universe of users,” Streater said. “Not only that, it strengthens the offerings for the partner companies. It’s good for Forbidden, it’s good for our partners, and it’s definitely good for the users.”
Forbidden and the AP have integrated FORscene and AP ENPS. In the joint workflow, FORscene uses the MOS protocol to allow newsroom-based producers to create placeholders in the running order that can be filled by journalists on location, wherever they may be. Journalists can then craft stories that combine newly acquired footage with previously shot or archived material. Editors and producers in the newsroom can collaborate on finishing the piece right up to the time that it goes to air. The integration features the same ENPS-MOS placeholder workflow as in a typical non-cloud system, so there is no additional training required.
“Experienced editors have commented that this is the first time a fully capable cloud editor has been integrated seamlessly with ENPS and a MOS automation system,” said Bryan Girdler, ENPS development manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. “Because FORscene can run inside ENPS7, a journalist can edit at the OB event and collaborate with editors back at base. There’s no longer a need for complex network setups and large banks of traditional editing systems, which means considerable savings for sports and party conferences.”
In addition to a partnership with the AP, Forbidden has collaborated with deltatre to deliver sport coverage to global audiences, most recently providing video from golf tournaments around the world. deltatre now offers FORscene as part of its online solutions, providing customers with tools to create and distribute video content to multiple platforms, and providing economies of scale to broadcasters and sports organisations. The organiser of Europe's leading men's professional golf tour is using deltatre and FORscene cloud post-production tools to significantly reduce turnaround times, improve efficiencies, save money and ultimately deliver compelling content to drive a new content service that can be enjoyed by golf fans everywhere.
"Integrating FORscene with deltatre's infrastructure has created an unrivalled platform for creating content of global sporting events,” said Jim Irving, commercial director at deltatre. “Clients can edit material in FORscene from anywhere in the world as events are happening, while seamlessly integrating into other deltatre products such as our CMS, Forge. FORscene publishes the completed edits at full HD and distributes the finished video to multiple distributors as required."
Finally, FORscene has been integrated with EVS’ IPDirector and Xedio Dispatcher - an effort that has added remote editing functionality to the EVS offerings. The combination allows collaborative, browser-based editing of footage in the field, in sports centres, and in newsrooms. Editors can work remotely and confirm edits against broadcast-quality footage centrally for transmission. Field editors can upload ENG material to the cloud to share with broadcast centre users, and access content uploaded to the cloud from the broadcast centre or any other location.
Nicolas Bourdon, senior vice president of marketing at EVS, says integrating with FORscene clearly fills a gap in EVS’ end-to-end news production workflow in terms of remote connectivity for journalists on the field, and allows them to share content amongst different sites easily.
“Because of our partnership with Forbidden, EVS can propose an integrated solution with full remote operations,” Bourdon said. “This enables broadcasters to reduce costs of operations, maximise content availability across different sites, and get an edit package ready for playout or delivery quickly.”
Ultimately, Forbidden’s latest partnerships result in a path to expansion for the company and a better end product for customers in news and sports production.
Read the article in the online edition of Regional Film & Video here.
(MH/CD)