News Technology & Live Sport
Going for gold
Bridging the Beijing-NY gap
MATT ADAMS, vice president of broadcast solutions at
overlay infrastructure platform that can be
Omneon Inc, reports.
installed on an IP network to optimise content
distribution that is both managed and secure.
BC Universal’s coverage of the 22 Omneon MediaDeck servers were on the Over long distances its speed, when compared
N
Beijing Olympics proved to be a ground in Beijing at the International to FTP, is not to be believed. For example, a 1-
challenge…and a success. In a Broadcast Centre recording feeds coming from hour DV25 file sent from Beijing to the United
nutshell, the ambition was to each competition venue. Under the control of States on a 400-Mbps connection takes about
capture, edit and package an immense volume Cyradis automation and based on ScheduAll 30 hours via FTP, but only 3 minutes using this
of time-sensitive material, and then distribute requests, each server received two feeds new content distribution platform. The
it hitting every new media platform in simultaneously and encoded them at both high technology achieves this superior speed by
existence. And all with a minimal Beijing staff, resolution IMX or XDCAM HD and at proxy using three different transport protocols
with NBC’s new media production team in New resolution. Even as the feeds were still being (WANTCP, UDPT, and SUP), plus a unique
York. In other words, all that time-sensitive recorded, the MediaDeck servers were technique called parity-on-demand, which
content was located 6000 miles away from automatically directing their four output accelerates transfers by sending forward error
where NBC needed it to be. streams (two high-resolution, and two proxy) correction (FEC) information only when it is
It was an historic Olympic Games for many to a 180 TB Omneon MediaGrid active storage needed. In contrast, other systems use FEC
reasons, among them the fact that very little system, which in turn was linked by a series of continuously, which slows the data transfer.
happened on the fields of Beijing that was not multiplexed STM-1 connections to a second The content distribution platform also
available to a wide audience on the Web. 120 TB MediaGrid storage system in New York. speeds media workflows by supporting partial
The volume of content, the deadline A crucial element of the NBC workflow, and file restore and active transfers. Partial-file
pressure, and the distance combined to create a one that is new to the broadcast industry, is restore means an editor in New York who
potential logistical nightmare. To manage it, Omneon ProCast CDN content distribution selected the proxy of a single clip receives just
NBC relied on an all-digital platform to develop platform, wide area network (WAN) the high-resolution of that clip rather than the
an around-the-world, proxy-based workflow. optimisation software. ProCast CDN is an entire file. With active transfers, file transfers
The NBC Olympics main studio in Beijing. The sofa under the Olympic rings was the seat of
can begin even if the file is still being written,
all the studio interviews with medal winners.
as happens routinely in live event coverage
like the Olympic Games.
Finally, the technology actually manages
which files are transmitted when. Users select a
priority for each job, and when the software
recognises that a job is urgent, it allocates all
the bandwidth that is needed, even if other
files are already being transmitted. Meanwhile,
lower priority jobs trickle along until the
important transfer is complete, then they
reclaim the bandwidth they need. A
sophisticated management interface makes it
possible for users to establish priorities and
rules, and also to monitor network operations.
In the NBC Olympics workflow, ProCast
copied all proxy files from Beijing to New York
over a 280-Mbps connection. The Beijing-New
York connection was created from three age 28.
bundled OC-3 circuits with a 125-millisecond
delay, following disparate geographic routes.
NBC further optimised its bandwidth usage and
ultimately its ability to distribute programming
quickly by customising the software to manage
Continued on P
26 IBE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008
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