Meet Sky QA Operator James

[Federica-C]

My favourite TV series on Sky right now is Gomorrah, as I’m a huge fan of the crime genre and I enjoy a lot of foreign language films and shows. The soundtrack is phenomenal and the dark storyline is very enticing. A similar show that is also out on Sky is ZeroZeroZero, again a show bristling with crime and anti-heroes that I find very entertaining.

What's a QA Operator and why is the role so important in post-production?

A Quality Assurance operator is the last person to check our content before it goes to air, ensuring it is fault free and ready for millions of customers. We check content after it has been transcoded to the desired format for our Linear, VOD and OTT services, catching visual, audio, continuity, and metadata errors. This is important as these errors frequently occur, so if there was no QA operator some of the content that goes to air would have errors and would affect the high standard Sky has worked so hard over the years to cultivate.

What's metadata?

To briefly summarise metadata is essentially descriptive data, keeping this in mind there is a whole lot of different metadata used within Sky. The metadata that my colleagues and I specifically deal with is content specifications such as aspect ratio, resolution, sound system compatibility (stereo, Dolby) subtitles and audio description. The content metadata is the first thing the QA operator matches up on asset.

What are the different tasks a QA operator will perform?

There are number of different workflows a QA operator can be working on. Our main workflow is TMT (Top Middle Tail), this is where we check our longform content (tv shows, sports and films). We will perform our metadata checks and then check a minute at the beginning, middle and end of each item for any other possible error we might encounter. If the item we are checking is high priority, such as a show like Gomorrah, we will watch it in full.

Our next workflow is short-form content (promos and commercials), which is fairly similar in the way we check longform content, however a lot of what we are checking is content from third party clients that pay Sky to broadcast their material. We often find ourselves checking through a high volume of short-form items, sometimes as high as 100 or more items in one day. As promos and commercials are rarely more than a minute long these will always be watched in full duration.

We also provide a fast turnaround service for Sky Sports. It’s typically used to provide a first repeat of a live event, becoming available to customers within a very short time frame. We do this by patching in a feed via a router into a record port, we start to record the content 30 minutes before the live event begins as a cautionary action, assuring we don’t miss anything. Once the event has finished a producer/editor will send us timecodes so we can clip up the individual parts for the first repeat. We also perform a top middle tail check making sure the audio and visual is good quality. Once this is all done and we have sent the programme off to transmission we will then store the programme on our raw media database, the MAM (Media Asset Management,) for later repeats.

Our department also has one other workflow that doesn’t directly deal with finished content going out for linear. We will work in a separate room called MIC (Media Ingest Centre). In this room we digitise tapes that consist of old archived footage such as sports rushes and news. We do this using VTR decks linked to production computers that have software that allows us to ‘ingest’ the tape into file format from the decks. We often receive request from News producers who need specific old footage for a news story; a request like this will always take priority as these tend to be the most urgent regarding time frame.

How would you go about raising a metadata issue?

The team we communicate with the most is the media coordinators. They are responsible for packaging content from the MAM and sending it to us to check. If we spot a content metadata (the type of metadata previously mentioned) issue, or any other sort of error, we will send them an email explaining the issue and providing a timecode (if necessary) where it occurs. The media coordinator will determine whether this issue is bad enough for us to delete the asset and re-package it. We will then re-check the asset making sure that same issue isn’t present anymore. As I mentioned earlier there are other types of metadata used across Sky so the process would be different for those elements.

The most challenging experience [as a QA Operator at Sky] is making sure you’re as organised as possible and able to multi-task. On FTA we quite frequently have ‘rush hours’ of content coming in, so a way I deal with this is by setting up alarms for when things need to be in record and when they’re an hour away from the first repeat deadline. It can be challenging but also very rewarding when you know you’ve finished your shift managing to stay on top of everything and have delivered good quality content to the customer on time.

What processes are used to ensure Sound levels across programmes & films are consistent? I raises this as at least one series of Game of Throne was quiet requiring a reasonable boost to sound levels & the recent Zack Snyder Justice League Film also.

Asked by @nigea99 

For all content on channels with commercial breaks, Sky follows European Broadcast Union’s Recommendation 128 (EBU R128) which is designed to maintain consistent audio levels between programmes. This is followed by all UK broadcasters and uses the algorithm recommended by Ofcom and BCAP.

However, experience has shown that this doesn’t always work well when content has been mixed very dynamically (e.g. where sound effects have been mixed a lot louder than dialogue). For this reason, Game Of Thrones can end up with dialogue that sits at a lower level than a programme with a less dynamic mix, such as Brassic – the two programmes will have the same average loudness but the presence of loud explosions in Game Of Thrones results in dialogue sitting a lower level when compared to the dialogue level of Brassic.

We are currently looking at an alternative method which addresses both dynamic and non-dynamic audio mixes.

We do not require movies on Sky Cinema to be EBU R128 compliant since the lack of commercial break presents less challenges around inconsistent audio levels. We leave the audio mix as supplied to maintain the same listening experience of a movie regardless if watched on Sky or on Blu-ray. If Zack Snyder’s Justice League seemed quiet, it would have been because it was mixed this way.

Why are programmes not checked for subtitles?

Asked by @SDR 

Programmes that are designated for subtitles are checked for them. We make sure that we have a perfect running timecode with no delays so that when they are added on there isn’t a gap between what is being said and the subtitle relaying that. In a lot of circumstances programmes will initially go to air without subtitles but for the direct repeat they will have access services (audio description and subtitles) added to them later on.

What is involved in getting UHD/HDR content up and why it often lags behind the HD broadcast?

Asked by @Chrisee 

New releases are the exception for when UHD/HDR content isn’t up at the same time. The main differences are the encoding times.

To get the best out of UHD, we’ve used the highest settings to encode the files which customers see. Unfortunately, these settings, coupled with the bigger files due to greater resolution and greater resolution and greater bit depth, take over 40 times longer to encode than HD does. This is always considered when coordinating content through our system so that we meet deadlines. In most instances content is available on time, however, when delivery of content has been delayed there are exceptions when the UHD is not there as quickly as the HD version is.

With regards to older titles, we are actively acquiring the UHD/HDR rights and material for these, so there will be titles which have been in HD for a long time and will then be made available later in UHD/HDR.

 

Following two questions asked by @lettice

How has this all changed with the Comcast ownership, like sharing or merging processes and even metadata?

In regard to myself when Comcast took over ownership of Sky, they made it clear that they wanted to keep Sky running as it currently was, so none of these processes have changed for me. However, I do know a lot of collaboration has happened between both parties in sharing and reviewing processes. Also, both Sky and Comcast share the same values, integrity, and commitment to delivering excellent programming to our customers.

Are there any different challenges with linear TV compared to On Demand and downloaded content and does that throw up any sharing of data issues? Thinking more like why there is often a delay of getting On Demand content up after the linear broadcast and especially for UHD/HDR content.

There are minor differences with the workflows due to linear requiring on-the-fly encoding during the transmission, whilst VOD has a quicker than real time encoding. Other than the occasional delay with UHD/HDR, SD and HD On Demand offerings should be available straight after the transmission. If this is not the customer experience, we will need to investigate this. We’ll need to know title date/time and what devices the delay is seen on.

What I enjoy most [about the job] is that I have the option to learn from so many different areas of the business. I can spend time shadowing and attending overviews in other departments or just have a chat with someone by the coffee machine, allowing me to learn various technical terms and understanding how various systems and equipment operates. Whilst I have attained a wealth of technical knowledge in my three years in the role, I know there is still much more to learn.

Do you have a question for James? Leave a comment below and we will get back to you. 

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