Sony’s multi-platform news production system has been chosen by the Vatican Communication Department for the creation, storage and sharing of content, aimed at different types of audiences around the world.
Vatican News, the web portal for official communications of the Holy See, simplifies its multi-platform content production operations with Sony Media Backbone Hive, to reach its audience through online channels, social media, TV, radio and press. The challenge consists precisely in producing multicultural, multi-channel and multi-device contents for a diversified and multilingual audience. Vatican News provides information on the activities of Pope Francis, the Vatican, local churches and updates on news from around the world. The Ministry for Communication was established following the Vatican reform called “Motu Proprio” and launched by Pope Francis in 2015. The stated aim is to reorganize all the media contents of the Vatican, bringing them into the digital age.
The official Ministry organ works just like a press agency, providing free videos for broadcasters all over the world, along with audio, text and images, for any type of journalism. And here comes Media Backbone Hive, which provides Vatican News with more flexibility to create, edit, share and store content, with a cloud-based and multi-platform deployment. Media Backbone Hive is a unified, scalable platform that runs on standard IT hardware and can be deployed on local servers, in the cloud, or both. Journalists in the field, producers and editors can collaborate from anywhere in the world, gathering content for the internet, TV and radio.
For the moment, Media Backbone Hive is used for content acquisition. In a second phase, the news team will consider including radio and social media resources in the Hive workflow.
It’s not the first time that Sony Professional Solutions works closely with the Vatican. On December 24, 2017, the Christmas Eve Mass was broadcast live by Vatican Media in 4K Ultra HD, using a Sony UHC-8300 camera to capture further images of the 8K liturgical ceremony. In December 2015, the opening ceremony of the Holy Door was filmed live in Sony’s 4K HDR from the Vatican Television Center. In April 2014, the ceremony in which Pope Francis beatified Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII was broadcast live on HD, 3D and 4K Ultra HD. The event was filmed using six Sony 4K PMW-F55 cameras. And, apparently, the collaboration continues.
