Solutions
Superbase
Case Studies
TV Media Publishing
Nick Green
TV Media Publishing, a young Brighton-based publishing services
company, was set up 2½ years ago by 37 year old Nick Green, its
Managing Director. The company provides T.V. listings for 150 UK
channels among which are ONdigital, What Satellite TV, local newspapers
and magazines. They also distribute channels (such as British Eurosport
and U>Directfilms) through their SB database system as well feeding
the various electronic program guides, and website data.
Ten years ago, Nick was working as a freelance for a national satellite
magazine. At that time, the explosion of Sky, satellite and cable
T.V made the job of collecting and collating the listings for so
many channels a daunting prospect. Nick decided that coping with
such large amounts of data required a database; moreover a database
with a graphical user interface, which meant in effect a Windows
database. The other prerequisite was compatibility with other programs
they were using at the time, such as Pagemaker, Quark Xpress and
Ventura Publisher.
A regular attendee and contributor at the Windows shows, (he was
involved in publishing Windows World magazine at the time), at the
1989 show he came across the Superbase stand and consequently the
first Windows database.
The software was bought, and with some guidance from one of the
Superbase team they produced a TV listings database. Apart from
one related table with TV station IDs it was a simple flat-file
operation.
"It progressed from there over that first year. We then started
on a movie database as quite a few movie channels were now opening
up. We needed some way of storing information in a library so it
could be accessed repeatedly, rather than keying in information
time and time again."
"We had a few struggles into the night and eventually we achieved
our aim."
The Superbase ONdigital screen
The System Today
The system is running on an NT Server 2000 platform which allows
excellent connectivity with both Macs and PCs which is essential
in the publishing environment of today. Information is gathered
from over 150 UK channels - terrestrial TV, satellite & cable
and the new digital channels.
Listings are sent in a variety of formats ranging from hard copy
(unfortunately this still has to be keyed in!), to Word, plain text
or even spreadsheet files. The copy is often heavily formatted,
all of which needs to be stripped out to make it database-friendly.
Nick has written macros to strip out all formatting and leave a
plain Ascii file.
Each channel has its own macro to deal with that particular channel's
requirements. The file is not only saved in Ascii format, but date
coded and other devices such as angle brackets inserted around the
episode name. The prepared files are then imported into TV Media's
Superbase application. Dialog boxes at time of import ensure that
information will be processed accurately. The operator has complete
control over the details of the import; which files are to be imported,
one or many, time of import and there is also a facility for changing
the hour of broadcast for channels outside of Greenwich Mean Time.
The system ensures everything complies with the exact specification
of the target publication's layout, and the process is extremely
fast. When completed, the stripped and tagged file is then imported
into commercial DTP packages (such as Quark Xpress) in the final
pre-press layout ready for publication.
"Superbase had been tried and tested on the Gem operating system
so I was very pleased to see it come to Windows and it was just
natural for us to go for it and we've been using it ever since."
Did he have any programming experience before starting with Superbase
I wondered?
"Only the old Sinclair Spectrum stuff. I was not a programmer,
I was in at the publishing and marketing end. I had been in computers
for about ten years, and also writing for magazines so I was aware
of what was out there. Superbase had been tried and tested on the
Gem operating system so I was very pleased to see it come to Windows
and it was just natural for us to go for it and we've been using
it ever since."
Other recent developments have been an image database and a film
database.
Images used in the previous six months cannot be used again, so
the database keeps track of what images are available. Images are
downloaded from the web, bulletin boards and from each channel.
They are 'cut out', listed into an Asciii text file and then fed
into the library database where they are validated against date
last used and thereby telling the user what images are now available
to use. The film database not only holds basic information such
as title, director, year of release, cast etc., but more importantly
it contains an in-depth collection of synopses and reviews which
are regularly called upon when the film is to be screened. Films
can be sorted by title, director, year, genre, etc...
Looking Ahead
The future is looking very exciting for TV Media whose next project
is the development of a one-stop, internet-delivered site bringing
the whole database under one roof. A virtual server on the internet
using Superbase Internet Connectivity will enable clients to enter
details directly and download all of their TV schedules, highlights
and updates, in whatever output - Quark, other DTP packages, HTML,
XML, digital - that they require.
This new service is due within the next six months and will not
only greatly reduce production time but dramatically improve client
access and convenience. Clients will be safe in the knowledge that
information on the site will be the most up-to-date available. British
Eurosport, a subset of Europe's biggest sports network, are already
using this technology to share their press information which can
be seen at http://www.tvmedia.co.uk/eurosport/eurosport.htm.
A virtual server on the internet using Superbase Internet Connectivity
will enable clients to enter details directly and download all of
their TV schedules, highlights and updates
In the near future, publishers will also be able to download quality
colour images from the site and in a variety of popular graphic
formats for Apple Mac or PC users. The images will be viewed as
a photographic contact sheet where the user simply clicks a thumbnail
to download the hi-resolution [jpeg compressed] version.
Why Superbase?
Nick's forward-looking approach and enthusiasm for the latest technology
is immediately apparent. I was interested to know why he had decided
on Superbase as his development platform, rather than go for one
of the 'big boys'?
In the end we have to produce a magazine and I've found ways of
using Superbase that would be pretty tricky with other databases.
"If a program works you don't change it. We aren't after a
massive application but we've used it to get the job done. In the
end we have to produce a magazine and I've found ways of using Superbase
that would be pretty tricky with other
databases. We need to produce magazines quickly and effectively
with typesetting control codes tagged on to the export file. Superbase
has a vast array of text and graphic filters - indeed there's more
support filters than any other database I know. With just about
every known format covered, I can safely rely on Superbase to produce
amazing reports and show image content inside my data fields."
"For TV Media, we know we can rely on Superbase to get the
job done, and without a fuss. It takes the pain out of development
and keeps the development hours down - unheard of with many other
database programming languages and that includes MS Access."
Nick went on to say that Superbase's greatest feature is its truly
intuitive interface which allows first-time users to explore and
enjoy creating wonderful databases using a few button clicks and
the much-copied 'video-style' design first employed by Superbase.
For the experienced user, Superbase also has a flexible and powerful
programming interface, SBL; BASIC driven and similar in many respects
to Visual Basic (whilst employing the subset operational commands
of SQL). Tables and forms can be rapidly produced and operational
in minutes. A Superbase Form can be layered over any remote database
using SQL or ODBC. The Form Designer is feature rich and can produce
Desktop Publishing style presentational databases.
For the experienced user, Superbase also has a flexible and powerful
programming interface, SBL.
"Finally, I must mention its size and speed. Superbase requires
only 4mb to run - which means I can run clients (or servers) on
an old 486 with 16mb if I need to. This means I don't have to throw
away old Workstations and I don't have to go looking for the next
most powerful computer to run the new version of Access/ Borland
etc. The engine is incredibly fast - even on an old system, and
I can fly through records and search out my criteria over a network
or on a stand-alone with instant results. I call Superbase my lean,
mean fighting machine, and in 12 years of usage I've never had to
use any other relational database system. It has always met my challenge
with spectacular results."
Visit TV Media at http://www.tvmedia.co.uk
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