The Central Ingest Station is the primary place for ingest operations. It's usually located in a room where all new content is brought to. A team of ingest specialists uses several dedicated workstations to bring files from various storage devices into the production and delivery environment. While doing so, files are previewed, selected, pre-cut, and stitched. Technical metadata is generated automatically, while descriptive metadata is added manually. The product used for that is Woody IN2IT access. It can transcode and re-wrap the files in the platform-internal format.

A variant of central ingest is offered when the source devices are attached to a server or files are being moved there before the ingest operations. In this case, Woody IN2IT exchange is the right choice. Most often via watch folders, new files are detected and automatically ingested with standard metadata. If metadata is to be manually set, Woody IN2IT access can act as a client to IN2IT exchange.

In other cases, the requirement is to trigger an automated workflow for a batch of files. In this case, x-dream-media's Workflow Starter allows you to remotely browse, preview, select and segment video files via a WebGUI. Compared to Woody's IN2IT, the x-dream-media Workflow Starter sends the files for processing to x-dream-media's Workflow Manager (WFM). WFM orchestrates transcoding, re-wrapping, QC, virus scanning and other operations. It's usually used to manage larger amounts of material.

Besides the central ingest, desktop or kiosk ingest offers journalists and creatives to bring source material into the production environment from their workspaces or dedicated computers close to their desks. A dedicated computer allows virus risks to be managed in a controlled and professional manner. Furthermore, it reduces costs when expensive storage devices such as Sony XDCAM HD are required. The functionality provided is identical to that of the central ingest desks. The product of choice is again Woody's IN2IT access in combination with x-dream-media's WFM and other tools for virus scanning and QC.

To serve a larger number of journalists at their desks for occasional ingests, the Upload web client of IN2IT exchange is a cost-effective alternative. Please see "Remote Journalists" below.

There is the saying "What happens, happens first on YouTube". So ingesting social media content is taking content from end-user publishing portals back to production environments. Often, a journalist has found an item of interest and faced the challenge of retrieving and ingesting the file. Download tools can be used in combination with the usual ingest tools. A more efficient method is using one integrated tool. In our solution, we use Woody IN2IT social for directly downloading and ingesting from social media and web portals.

Live sources can be provided by satellite feeds, lease line or studio transmissions. Traditionally, video is provided as HD-SDI signals. Nowadays we can find SMPTE 2110 or NDI sources too. Recording typically occurs as either a “crash record” or a scheduled recording. For fully integrated multi-camera or multi-feed recording, our solution is built on Woody IN2IT live ingest software. It supports the recording of SDI, NDI, SMPTE 2110 studio signals and many types of web streams.

When metadata handling and integration is less important during live recording x-dream-media's Broadcast Recorder is a perfect alternative for recording to disk and processing via x-dream-media's WFM workflow orchestrator.

For connecting remote interview guests from their mobile phones, laptops or PCs, we provide you with MultiCAM's AirBridge. It converts your master control room to a video call-in center. For more static or reoccurring connections, Medialooks Video Transport is the video engineers swiss knife.

Even though tape might be dead, many archives still hold tape-based content. Tapes are still occasionally used in production or as a physical transport medium. Consequently, our ingest solution addresses this by making use of recording software in combination with x-dream-media's WFM for ingest workflows or Woody's IN2IT exchange for PAM ingest.

Although individual journalists in the field and external contributors provide content occasionally and in smaller volumes, their collective number is large. Therefore, a simplified way to up- and download video files with related metadata is required. Tools have to be accessible globally and intuitive to use. We address these needs by Woody' upload WebGUI for IN2IT exchange. It allows to contribute from remote directly into the production chain as an operator on-site would do.

A special remote ingest variant is available for scenarios where a work order is first received and then a production result is returned. In this case, x-dream-media's PROexchange is a excellent solution for extending on-premises workflows to integrate external production partners. A workorder is received via a so-called exchange job. These are communication threads that are restricted to individual users or groups. They take in the essence files to work on and further metadata that describes the workorder. The contributor has access to their communication jobs as a permanently registered user or an operator invites them to a temporary room.

Staff in remote offices or production facilities require tight integration into the systems of the main facility in order to be as productive as possible. Larger facilities can be equipped as the main facility. Smaller facilities get provided with a fully featured but smaller scale system. In both cases, the users interact with a local system that sends and retrieves the files and metadata to and from the main facility as a background process.

Today's content production and publishing happens across collaborating companies. Studios send material to post-production facilities who, after editing, forward to agencies, who then forward to broadcasters and publishers. A high volume of video files, together with their metadata, must be transmitted via a safe, secure, and reliable method. Within our ingest solution, we provide market leading technology to address these needs, for instance, by Fortra FileCatalyst. Cross-team workflows are implemented via our hybrid workflow orchestration layer WFM.

To further improve efficiency and content discoverability, the x-dream All Ingest Solution can integrate AI-driven processing during ingest.

During or immediately after ingest, AI services can automatically:

• Generate speech-to-text transcriptions for searchable timed metadata
• Create automatic subtitles and captions
• Translate metadata and subtitles into multiple languages
• Detect and identify faces, objects, or scenes in video material
• Enrich assets with AI-generated tags and contextual metadata
• Support faster content search, archive access, and newsroom workflows

These capabilities help broadcasters and content owners reduce manual logging, accelerate editorial workflows, and improve content monetization opportunities.

After files and metadata have been ingested, fully automated actions can take place, such as transcoding and re-wrapping to a house format or browsing proxies, quality control, audio processing (e.g. normalising), or video processing (e.g. standard conversions). Advanced actions — such as audio transcription for timed metadata and subtitle generation, translation of metadata and subtitles, and facial recognition — can be incorporated for automated metadata enrichment. Finally, assets (files + metadata) are handed over to the production system(s). For instance, while a high-resolution file is moved and checked into the production asset management system (e.g. Interplay PAM), a low-resolution browsing proxy is made available to the media asset management system (MAM) or the newsroom control system (NRCS). 

Squared Papers Busby is the backbone of our end-to-end ingest solution. It orchestrates and processes the ingest workflows. Build-in user interfaces or x-dream-media's OneGUI provide the overview on any volume of ingested assets.