To get an idea of the magnitude of the storage capacity necessary at a digital broadcast facility, here's a blurb from the DirecTV webpage. Something like this would be needed at the thousands of yet-to-be-deployed digital broadcast centers world-wide:
(The rest can be found here:
directv.com
THE DIRECTV BROADCAST SYSTEM
The most advanced and state-of-the-art, all serial-digital equipment:
Fully-automated Sony broadcast system can process and send
up to 200 video and audio channels simultaneously.
512 input x 512 output Sony digital routing switcher, which
carries 4 audio signals with each video signal, part of a 1,024
input by 1,024 output virtual signal routing matrix.
THIS IS WHERE AN OROM-like PRODUCT COULD PLAY A ROLE:
56 Sony Flexicart robotic videotape playback systems.
Two 1,000-cassette Library Management Systems that
compile commercial and interstitial promotional messages for
on-air playback.
Over 300 Sony Digital Betacam videotape machines.
State-of-the-art scheduling system developed by MEMEX
Software, Inc. provides program library maintenance,
multi-channel program schedules, broadcast log resource
assignments, and second-to-second broadcast logs.
56 Thomson/CLI multi-channel compression systems
compatible with MPEG-2 standard.
Sophisticated encryption systems in the Conditional Access
Management Center provided by News Datacom, Ltd.
Four 13-meter transmitting antenna systems, six 6-meter
C-band receive-only antennas, two 4.5 meter Ku-band
receive-only antennas, and a ten-meter Torus multi-satellite,
multi-band receive only antenna.
54 high-power satellite uplink transmitters.
A very large coffee maker!
There's almost 400 miles of audio and video cable in the broadcast
center.
But who knows, maybe they're not even thinking along these lines for their product. Just a thought! Maybe we'll find out 3/23 when their web site actually turns into something
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