Danish Broadcasting Corporation Selects SGI for Phase 2 of
All-Digital
Workflow for News and Sports
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The newsroom of the future is being built today. After the successful completion of a pilot phase architected by SGI (NYSE: SGI), Danish Broadcasting Corp. (DR) again chose SGI(R) equipment and systems integration services for the second phase of the global broadcast industry's most completely integrated news system. The project, valued at U.S. $6.5 million, has an estimated completion date of December 2003. Based on the SGI Media Server(TM) for broadcast system and designed by SGI, the Sports and News Production System (SNPS) is a total solution that provides a robust and flexible file-based digital production environment built on a content-sharing asset management system. For DR personnel in 11 different news and sports departments including television, radio and online operations, the breakthrough move to a file-based digital system will significantly change and enhance current workflows -- resulting in more-effective and more-efficient production methods. The first newscasts produced on the SGI system are slated for broadcast in May 2003.
DR, Denmark's oldest and largest public service radio and television company, plans to implement an all-digital workflow for all TV production departments and the TV-Byen, Arhus and Christiansborg locations by 2005. The company operates two nationwide television channels and three nationwide radio stations, owns and operates several local television and radio stations and employs more than 3,500 people.
"From a technical as well as an organizational viewpoint, this is a leading-edge project that will have a major impact on our production. It is DR's experience that SGI gets the job done and integrates well with other companies' products. That was key to our decision to award SGI the Phase 2 contract," said Torben Lundberg, head of technology for news and sports at DR. "The success of the pilot project proved the feasibility of the undertaking and demonstrated a return on investment. We began broadcasting live news with the pilot system on December 17, 2001, and then extended to a new three-hour morning news service. In the pilot project more than 1,000 news broadcasts were digitally produced, delivered and archived. We have been very pleased with the quality and speed of production. Once Phase 2 is complete, our staff will have even faster access to archived material and will be able to share video and sound material across our TV, radio and online operations."
"SGI and Danish Broadcasting have worked successfully together in pioneering a file-based digital asset management system set in the context of news production. This agreement represents a major milestone for DR -- it is necessary to go back to the shift from film to video technology for DR's news broadcasts in the 1970s to find a change as significant in broadcast technologies and workflows," said Mark Miller, regional manager, SGI. "We are very proud of all the SGI personnel who worked so very hard to ensure that the proposal contained the best possible SGI solution to meet Danish Broadcasting's requirements on workflow, data flow, reliability and redundancy, bandwidth, flexibility, service, and architecture. SGI is fully committed to making the all-digital news production at Danish Broadcasting a success and the model on which the global transition to digital broadcasting will be based."
SGI Sports and News Production System for Danish Broadcasting
For Phase 2 SGI will design archival and Web interface functionality into the SNPS system. The project includes the design of the overall digital architecture, integration of the required multivendor technologies, and a variety of professional services, project management, and project-specific software development. Hardware requirements for the second phase of the project include eight SGI Media Server for broadcast systems; a 24-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 3000 series server; a 12-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 server; two SGI(R) TP9400 storage systems with 3.4TB of storage, and SGI(R) Data Migration Facility (DMF) software for moving data from disk to tape that will serve as the foundation for archiving material. SGI will also integrate an automation system from vizrt; desktop editing functionality such as voice-over capability, transcoding software including keyframe extraction, and scheduled ingest automation software from Ardendo; a StorageTek(R) L5500 tape library; 24 Pinnacle Liquid purple and Pinnacle Liquid blue nonlinear editing systems; and a transcoding cluster consisting of 12 dual-processor Linux(R) operating system servers.
SGI DMF software seamlessly integrates content on tape and disk, stored offline and online, making it instantly available to the user. Broadcast Integration Service, an XML-based API developed by SGI Professional Services, provides interfaces to all of the different client software and systems, including the Web front end developed by DR. This combination makes it the most sophisticated and flexible asset management system in the broadcast industry.
About SGI
Celebrating its 20th year, SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in high-performance computing, visualization and the management of complex data. SGI products, services and solutions enable its technical and creative customers to gain strategic and competitive advantages in their core businesses. Whether being used to design and build safer cars and airplanes, discover new medications and oil reserves, predict the weather, entertain us with thrilling movie special effects or provide mission-critical support for government and defense, SGI systems and expertise are empowering a world of innovation and discovery. The company, located on the Web at www.sgi.com, is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and has offices worldwide.
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