beam.tv
Agencies approve commercials on beam.tv with Windows Media 9 Series
Leading commercials are reviewed over the beam.tv network
The idea behind Internet video and film delivery system beam.tv  started in 1998 when a group of people in the technology department of London facilities house
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The Mill had to find a way to please director Ridley Scott. At the time he was editing the movie Gladiator in LA, whilst the visual effects were being created by The Mill in London—a difficult task involving the transatlantic travel of a lot of tapes.
The Mill experimented with encoding video and sending  it to a website for Scott to view remotely. The system worked and was developed into e-Mill and then into beam.tv—which has now been spun off into a separate company.
"We are an online preview and archiving tool built for the advertising industry," says Ben Smith, head of encoding and technology, "Our aim is to make it easy to view work in progress and speed up creative decision-making, which saves people time and money."
The idea is that companies can upload and download image files stored on beam.tv's servers; the system can be accessed from any computer anywhere in the world as long as you have a password. An agency that once would have sent tapes of the cut of a commercial to the client via the post production house will now transfer the images via the Internet. Footage can also be sent to a number of post companies who work in partnership with the service. Ninety-eight per cent of London ad agencies use this system.
Of course, net users all over the world are sending images using Internet technology, but the difference here is in the quality of the image and the software that beam.tv has written to make tasks such as archiving, online approval and creating showreels easy. For any high quality film or video format to be transferred quickly via broadband it has to be compressed, which is where codecs such as Windows Media® Audio and Video 9 come into play.
"I think Windows Media 9 Series is a big step forward in encoding technology because it is resolution independent—it can encode everything from high definition digital cinema quality work to low res web work. And the picture quality is always excellent. It means ad agencies can send high definition ads for approval. You can create a HD media file from a HD master at 6Mbps. Before, to encode using legacy technology would have taken 18Mbps," comments Smith. "Less is more with this technology."
Another part of the system to use this advance is the beambox, a set top box which allows beam.tv users to view the contents of the archive, or any other content sent to them via the beam system, on a television or larger screen (rather than a PC). There are around 200 beamboxes world-wide and each can store up to seven hours of DVD-quality film or HD in Windows Media 9 Series. The beambox is built on a Windows® XP Embedded platform, with the .NET system developed by Root6 Technology for beam.tv.
Beam.tv took eight beamboxes to the Cannes Lions 2003 advertising festival in June. These contained the 4,500 festival entries which were submitted via beam.tv. The boxes were used to play the commercials direct to screens, both to the judges in four areas and four additional cinema screens for the delegates.
"Historically, the jury would hire an editor to compile a short-list and then edit a tape to show the judges. This would take hours—we did it in five minutes," says Smith. "With beam.tv, you can build a showreel and distribute it to clients all over the world very simply and quickly, before it would have involved an edit suite, lots of tapes and international couriers."
"Beam.tv has worked because it has been designed by the people that use it. The user interface is very relevant to the way people work and the business model is also perfectly suited to the market," says Debra Peake, global marketing director for ad agency Publicis Worldwide. "There are three parameters in production jobs: speed, quality and cost‐and these are interconnected. Beam.tv allows you to improve the quality and speed and potentially reduce cost too. It's a win-win situation. The ability to access work instantly and address concerns has made a difference."
For Smith, there is no going back: "Windows Media 9 Series now gives us the ability to give the agencies the highest quality at lowest data rates. They can now review stuff back as if they were in the suite."
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