NRK rolls out file-based production infrastructure
Jul 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Dick Hobbs
The Norwegian state broadcaster created an all-encompassing asset management system.
Norwegian state broadcaster NRK is rolling out an all-encompassing asset management system as part of its cross-media developments. Implemented by systems integrator TSL, with software input from OmniBus, Programme Bank represents one of the most complex file-based production infrastructure projects in Europe.
The broadcaster believes that there is no longer a separation of radio or television. Productions for television, radio and the Internet all work together, and content goes across all three platforms. The whole of NRK is moving to one production body.
This is the real driver behind the new asset management system. With everyone in the organization potentially interested in every piece of content, it was clear that a new way of sharing material was required. Add to the mix the requirement to serve not just the Oslo headquarters but also 13 regional centers around Norway, and the job became even more demanding.
Arild Hellgren, director of technology at NRK, started looking at this at the beginning of 2005. At that time, many people were talking about file-based production. Indeed, the broadcaster had its own file-based island, the Quantel newsroom. Now staff wanted their content available to all.
The broadcaster set up a task force to devise a case for file-based content sharing and persuaded its board to release €20 million for the investment.
Armed with the requirements and the budget, Hellgren went out to the market. To remain within EU tendering laws, the needs were carefully stated in terms of outcomes, with payment tied to delivery of proven functionality and timescales. In this way, the broadcaster used the market — and in particular the knowledge and experience of the systems integrators — to prove that its asset management concept was right, and that it was now technically possible.
The broadcaster was already familiar with OmniBus because it uses the Columbus automation system in its regional centers. OmniBus demonstrated that its OPUS content management suite was capable of delivering the required functionality and connectivity; about 50 percent of the contract value is in new software development.
The third main partner in the project is NRK itself. As well as being the customer, it is also responsible for delivering the network infrastructure and all the standard IT equipment.
Pressure
Contracts were signed and the project begun, with the intention of the first handovers taking place in mid-2008 and final sign-off by the end of the year. But the political masters of the broadcaster intervened to add pressure.
Norway was a latecomer to digital terrestrial television, starting broadcasts as recently as 1 September 2007. The broadcaster was asked to help drive digital uptake by launching a new channel — NRK Super, aimed at children — as part of the new multiplex. There was no point in setting up a workflow for the new channel only for it to be completely changed within a few months, so the Programme Bank timescales were pulled back to allow NRK Super to go on-air from a completely file-based environment on 1 December last year.
With the first phase of implementation live and proven, it was a good time to see what the system could achieve. The heart of the new asset management system is a central media store, which uses Omneon MediaGrid disk storage with archiving on a StorageTek tape robot using DIVA software from Front Porch Digital. The tape robot was built to be expanded, so in its present location, it can grow to 360,000 hours of content.
The disk storage system — one of the biggest installed in Europe — currently has 89 servers, with a total of 5000 hours of capacity at Programme Bank's internal standard of 50Mb/s IMX in a QuickTime wrapper. The third resident system in the central server room is an IPV Browse encoding system, running Windows Media 9 at 1.5Mb/s. The server room, incidentally, was built for the project with fully redundant power supplies and cooling systems each rated at 100kW.
Attached to this central archive of material are several domains. Some of these are geographic — the broadcaster's regional centers — but in Oslo, there are also application domains.
The Oslo production domain is a good way of explaining the functionality of the system. This subsystem is responsible for ingest and delivery of content through local Omneon Spectrum servers. In addition to conventional ingest from tapes or feeds, it also provides live isolation recording from the broadcaster's production studios.
Linked to each server are several encoders, which automatically create the WM9 version within 10 seconds of the start of ingest. Should this fail for any reason, when the content gets to the storage system, a watch engine checks for the browse copy. If it cannot find it, it starts a transcode process immediately.
This is the fundamental purpose of the asset management system: Every piece of content that is created or ingested is available on it, in high-resolution format, in the central server or its nearline tape archive. A complete mirror of the whole archive in browse resolution is available.
There are several specialist clients in key areas, particularly for ingest, editing and management. But what makes it genuinely open to all is that every single computer on the network can access at least the browse version, and all the associated metadata, using nothing more than a Web browser and a small client key from OmniBus. Every one of the station's 2500 staff can research content, view it, and at least top and tail material for subsequent editing.
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