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Thinking outside the box

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Brad Cox and John Hancock

Broadcasters are using video servers in innovative ways.

WRSP-TV, WCCU-TV and WBUI-TV in the United States share one master control room, fi ve edit bays, one main studio and two substudios. All are run by an engineering staff of four. The staff ingests 50 shows each day in real time and runs 30 playlists.

Savvy broadcasters and content distributors are finding creative new ways to leverage the capabilities of the now-ubiquitous media server to solve specific challenges beyond record, store and playout. Media servers are now standard equipment for television broadcasters. As the cost per channel of broadcast-quality servers has come down and file-based workflows have become essential to efficient, high-quality production, these station workhorses are being used in innovative ways beyond their original scope as VTR replacements.

Budget limitations and new content repurposing opportunities are spurring many of these new uses. Declining advertising revenue due to online media competition, as well as the cost of HD conversion, is adding to the pressure on station engineers to be resourceful in designing storage and archive workflows.

To ride the wave of viewer migration to Web 2.0 entertainment sites, stations are adding streaming capability for Web broadcast of traditional over-the-air programming. Other new media outlets — such as digital signage networks, and Web-based news and content aggregators — give broadcasters even more options for extending their potential audience.

This article will take a closer look at original ways broadcasters use video servers for file transfer, storage, content distribution, virtual sets, distribution of programming to digital signage outlets and content management.

Improving file transfer and storage efficiency

As the volume, complexity and size of digital assets increase, file transfer and management workflows are being redesigned to save time and reduce cost; and video servers are proving to be valuable tools for improving efficiencies. Program file storage in the digital age has evolved into a four-tier system, based on immediacy of access. The four tiers are:

online, with files stored in onboard server hard drives for immediate access and playout;
nearline, with files stored on network-attached hard drives that can be transferred to online access and inserted into the online workflow;
offline, with files stored on external drives, optical, or tape media, but housed in the building; and
archive, with files stored off-site.

Each storage tier requires different management workflows. For example, because data tape can degrade, archived storage may need to be refreshed at regular intervals. For nearline storage to support playlist building, a fast-access drive array must be used to make a direct connection to the server, as opposed to slower media.

Servers offer reliability and effi ciency to Santa Monica CityTV in the United States. Darren Doerschel, technical operations supervisor for Santa Monica’s government community cable channel, relies on two 360 System servers.

Because HD content file size can be more than six times larger than equivalent SD files, workflows and infrastructure designed for SD content storage and transfer is costly and time-consuming. Serial attached SCSI (SAS) offers higher transfer rates (3Gb/s) for moving HD files in nearline storage to online servers. However, this is a point-to-point protocol with dedicated, not networked, connectivity.

The traditional solution for distributing content to multiple stations is satellite data delivery in a point-to-multipoint solution, pushed from a central location. But new options are emerging. One U.S. public broadcasting station group recently installed a system that enables remotely located stations to share access to the servers and archives. This allows affiliates to select and download only the specific content they require, rather than ingesting and storing large quantities of unneeded content.

Some broadcasters are discovering that storing and transferring files on portable hard drives offers many advantages over network and satellite file transfers, including instant access, quick regeneration and lower distribution cost. Moving data can be as simple as using a Web browser to drag and drop files. At a cost of around €85 each, hard drives also deliver fast and economical backup compared with standard tape backup systems.