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Content that’s tailored for your circumstances, preferences and devices. Programmes that understand your viewing habits, and flex to fit. Experiences that reflect the things you love, and offer extra information just when you might need it.

Object-Based Media can do all this.

A ´óÏó´«Ã½ Tailored For You

Object-based media allows the content of programmes to change according to the requirements of each individual audience member.

The 'objects' refer to the different assets that are used to make a piece of content. These could be large objects: the audio and video used for a scene in a drama – or small objects, like an individual frame of video, a caption, or a signer.

By breaking down a piece of media into separate objects, attaching meaning to them, and describing how they can be rearranged, a programme can change to reflect the context of an individual viewer.

We think this approach has potential to transform the way content is created and consumed: bringing efficiencies and creative flexibility to production teams, enabling them to deliver a personalised ´óÏó´«Ã½ to every member of our audience.

• ´óÏó´«Ã½ News - Click 1,000: How the pick-your-own-path episode was made
• ´óÏó´«Ã½ Taster - Try Click's 1000th Interactive Episode

Each of the scenarios below is for illustrative purposes only and represent how ´óÏó´«Ã½ R&D work on Object-Based Media could manifest in the future.

A day in the lives of ´óÏó´«Ã½ audiences in 2022

My Forecast

When I watch the weather forecast on iPlayer, I can choose to replace the speaking presenter with a signing one.  Because it knows me, iPlayer gives me a signer as default. It syncs with my calendar, knows where I’m planning to go in the next week, and gives me hyper-local forecasts. Ideal for planning my festival wardrobe for Radio 1’s Big Weekend!

Eastenders Catch-up

I love EastEnders but with four episodes a week there’s a lot to catch up on after a fortnight in the sun. iPlayer knows what I’ve missed and it creates a catch-up episode of Enders just for me. All the juicy bits are there and I’m up to speed in 30 minutes instead of two hours.

MOTD Local

I’m a passionate Accrington Stanley fan, I want to follow every move they make! Match of the Day Local lets me do just that. When I watch on iPlayer the programme focuses on my team, I can set which games I want to follow, and see how the league is shaping up.

Everyone’s Wonders of the Universe

When Wonders of the Universe first started it caused arguments in our house because of the soundtrack. We always loved how atmospheric it is but Gran’s hearing issues meant that she had trouble hearing Brian Cox over the music. These days our telly knows when she is in the room and adjusts the audio mix around her so she can hear the dialogue clearly.

Personal Podcast Commute

My commute can take me anything from 35 minutes to an hour. I usually listen to a podcast like Inside Science. By the time I’m on the train, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds has created and downloaded a length-perfect podcast for me. It’s great that ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds can make the programme fit my commute, rather than me missing the end.

Me and the Band

Because I’ve tagged tracks I love on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds, when it comes to Glasto there’s already a personalised channel for me. The ‘Tune Me In’ feature is excellent. During Goat Girl’s set I muted the lead guitar, got the sheet music and lyrics on my phone, and became Goat’s guitarist. I saved my performance, did a bit of an edit, and now I’ve shared it with my followers on SoundCloud.

´óÏó´«Ã½ Production Stories 2022

'Reversioner' R4-World Service

As a radio producer I’m asked to supply shorter versions of the programmes I’ve made for different broadcast slots. This would take a great deal of extra time if we didn’t have ‘Reversioner’ - I can choose a new duration and the tool creates an edit for me to review, polish and publish.

'Live Reversioner' - Automatic Package Editing on the fly

On a live news programme sometimes interviews can overrun meaning that there’s not enough time to run certain pre-recorded packages. With Live Reversioner, I can quickly reversion the package to fit the amount of time left in the programme, and more of my hard work reaches audiences.

'Rushing the Rushes'

Now that our cameras are connected to the cloud, they can be accessed by everyone on my production. Whilst we’re filming all the footage is automatically ingested, logged, and arranged into a rough edit for me to finesse. Extra footage is easy to find as the system has classified it, telling me what kind of shot it is, and who’s in the frame. It’s also already transcribed making it even more searchable.

Digging Deeper into Drama - 'Narrative Next'

As a drama producer, I often want to go beyond the allocated time slot, to tell deeper stories, or let audiences explore character profiles and back stories. With production tools like ‘Narrative Next’ viewers can access interactive versions of our dramas where they can follow their favourite characters. I can use the automatically marked-up rushes of these actors to offer an edited package about the character they’d like to know more about.

'Remix' – perfect audio wherever you are

Audiences want to enjoy our programmes everywhere. With mobile devices, they might start watching or listening to a programme at home and then finish the rest on the bus. Object-based media allows me to specify different audio mixes for different environments - if people are listening on the move, I can make sure that the sound is just right for them - whatever their surroundings.

'Duration Controller' – The Woman’s Hour Serial

A full series of our Woman’s Hour serial can be up to 70 minutes of content. The omnibus edition needs to be substantially shorter. Rather than reviewing the episodes to decide where I can save time, all I need to do is ask my edit tool to ‘show me all the recaps’, or ‘which character has the least airtime?’ and I can quickly work out what needs to stay and what can go.

'Be efficient and increase the reach'

I see the stories I’ve written appear in lots of different places across the ´óÏó´«Ã½ network. When I write copy I mark it up so my report can be reused anywhere.  I don’t have to worry about the layout, because the images and text are automatically styled for Newsround, the main News page, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Click site.

How close are we?

These links will take you to examples of ´óÏó´«Ã½ R&D’s work on Object-Based Media - from content ideas, to the research we are doing to make how to make it a viable reality at scale.

Content Ideas

Making it work at scale

Infrastructure