Post Production
week, with room to grow as needed. "There
The Challenge:
is never a day we are held hostage by
limited storage. We have online, nearline,
• Build integrated, HD-capable production and post-production facilities to keep pace with
and deep space storage that can be accessed
a rapidly expanding 24/7 sports programming network.
so fast. This storage setup changed how we
• Create a one-source media publishing infrastructure to deliver content to multiple
operate," he says.
outlets - television, mobile devices, or the Web.
The Media Composer Adrenaline and
The Solution:
Symphony Nitris systems have also become
the hub for quickly re-packaging content in
• Use an end-to-end Avid broadcast environment centred around an Avid Interplay
a variety of forms to feed the network’s
workgroup solution and an Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage network for SD and HD
multiple outlets. "There are a lot of programs
production of sports events.
that are cut down for video-on-demand and
• Use Media Composer Adrenaline and Symphony Nitris systems to cut and re-package
the Web. We have a tremendous amount of
content for a variety of outlets, including network broadcast, video-on-demand, mobile
content on
versus.com," says Koopmann.
devices, and the Web.
"We cut those pieces on Media Composer
Adrenaline [systems], compress them to the
show. We can take in multiple feeds with our the ISIS [shared-storage solution] radically proper format, and then push them out."
AirSpeed [servers]. Editors can cut pieces changed our entire workflow. What used to
and feed them directly into a live studio take hours to produce now takes minutes. It Winning technology
show. Even graphic artists can create small was a radical change. Now we have a
pieces that are pushed live." completely searchable database. All of our Throughout the design process,
Approximately 50 people throughout the material is in archive [with a half petabyte Koopmann relied on Avid’s Professional
organisation have access to the Avid of storage], and we are able to get material Services Group for consultation and
Interplay workgroup solution, which has to producers in proxy format or edit engineering advice, and he continues to rely
improved productivity in all areas - from capacity." on Avid’s 24/7 support. "It’s worth every
marketing, to legal, to production. Koopmann was hesitant at first to penny for a huge infrastructure like ours,
Koopmann says: "Interplay rolled out in implement an Ethernet-based shared-storage and we have had flawless performance," he
August 2007 and became an incredible tool solution to support such huge amounts of says. "I think the worst case we had was a
for us right away. Interplay combined with media. "Two years ago, our salesman at Avid drive failure. One drive failure in two years -
tried to convince us that an Ethernet out of more than 70 drives - is pretty good."
"Interplay combined with
solution was the way to go. The ISIS storage Koopmann views the technology itself as
the ISIS [shared-storage didn’t have a track record at the time [so we an important factor in Versus’s expansion
solution] radically
weren’t sure]. At first we had 16 TB of from a small, growing cable TV network to a
changed our entire
storage - two crates - tied into a gigabit large nationally distributed sports network.
workflow. What used to
switch. Now we have nearly 100 TB - six He explains: "If we had to do this 10 years
crates, doing HD and SD in multiple rooms. ago, it would have cost an enormous
take hours to produce
We are moving more HD over Ethernet than amount of money - an HD online room was
now takes minutes."
I could possibly imagine." $1 million or better. Even five years ago, we
Paul Koopmann, director of
The sophisticated storage setup enables could not have kept up. Without this
Versus to keep pace with a massive amount technology, I don’t believe it would have
engineering, Versus
of SD and HD programming content each been possible to get to where we are today."
70 IBE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84