SeaChange International Debuts Broadcast MediaCluster 1630/50 for Progressive Television Operations
biz.yahoo.com
Wednesday April 18, 12:54 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SeaChange International Debuts Broadcast MediaCluster 1630/50 for Progressive Television Operations
SeaChange Offers 28 Terabytes of Fault-Resilient Media Storage in a Single BMC; D10/IMX Support and 180 Gigabyte Drives Available Across the Entire BMC/BMS Product Line
MAYNARD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2001-- Meeting the needs of the new breed of television companies taking advantage of digital media throughout their broadcast production, post-production and transmission operations, SeaChange International, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEAC - news) introduces the Broadcast MediaCluster (BMC) 1630/50.
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With 33 percent more storage than the BMC 1230/50 systems, the BMC 1630/50 can store up to 28 terabytes of media with first-ever 180GB disk drives and Disk Expansion Chassis. As with the other members of the BMC product family, the BMC 1630/50 provides fault resiliency, multichannel I/Os and standards-based IP-network performance for broadcasters to consolidate their operations and expand their television opportunities.
``SeaChange is at work where television operators are aggressively deploying digital media throughout their operation,'' said John Pittas, vice president of broadcast products, SeaChange International, Inc. ``The high-end BMC 1630/50 complements our existing mid-range BMC 1230/50 and entry-level BMC 830/50 models. We're helping small, single-channel broadcasters and the large multichannel broadcast plants slash their media storage costs. Our MediaCluster architecture enables any broadcaster to not only reduce their media server costs but also achieve complete system fault-resilience in half the footprint of competing solutions. Furthermore, by adopting open standards such as the D10/IMX MPEG-2 profile, we're extending our solutions into the production and post-production environments and facilitating media interoperability between disk and tape-based systems.''
The SeaChange BMC 1630/50 media server system delivers all the benefits of SeaChange's MediaCluster-based line of multichannel systems, including full single-point fault-resilience without mirroring, plus storage and I/O scalability for large, integrated television production and transmission operations. The BMC 1630 can accommodate over 10 weeks of 30Mb/s MPEG-2 4:2:2 programming for on-air broadcast. This equates to over 32 weeks of storage if 12Mb/s MPEG-2 long-GOP coding is used. With soon to be available D10/IMX codec support, a BMC 1650 can store almost eight weeks of 50Mb/s MPEG-2 4:2:2 I Frame-only material on-line.
With 16 disk drives at 36, 72 or 180GB in each node, the BMC 1630/50 can store up to 14TB of media with a seven-node configuration. The addition of a Disk Expansion Chassis per node doubles the storage to 28TB. The BMC 1630/50 features completely revamped power and cooling subsystems and a new chassis to support the increased drive count and the new mechanical and power requirements of future higher speed and higher density disk drives. It provides up to 42 I/Os per cluster at 30Mb/s coding or 28 I/Os at 50Mb/s. Shipping late this summer, the Broadcast MediaCluster 1630/50 will be demonstrated at NAB 2001. The new 180GB drives can be ordered immediately across the entire BMC and Broadcast MediaServer (BMS) product line with customer deliveries scheduled for July.
Video format and compression independent storage coupled with ubiquitous IP-based networking
Through video format and compression independence, the patented MediaCluster architecture fulfills the goal of employing servers to support the use and movement of `media-as-data' throughout every aspect of the broadcast business. Broadcast MediaClusters enable broadcasters to work with long-GOP MPEG-2 SD or HD material for transmission, I Frame-only D10/IMX for production and post-production, MPEG-1 for browsing over intra-networks and multiple Internet video formats for webcasting.
Multiple Broadcast MediaClusters can be networked together using SeaChange's open Networked Storage Architecture (NSA), to form very large on-line storage and multichannel transmission facilities. NSA leverages inexpensive, high-performance Gigabit interfaces to transfer media throughout the broadcast facility by connecting the BMC to digital tape archives, non-linear editors, computer graphics workstations and PC browsers. Because it is an IP-based networking architecture, geographically remote facilities can be accessed as easily as on-site storage.
New D10/IMX capabilities span the entire BMC/BMS product line
Delivering improved performance not only in storage capacity but also in audio and video capabilities, the BMC 1650, as well as the entire BMC/BMS product family, will optionally incorporate the industry's most powerful A/V Codecs. SeaChange's Beowulf-II/50 and Genesis-II/50 Codecs will support D10/IMX compatible streams as well as existing MPEG-2 ML/4:2:0 and 4:2:2 coding profiles. These Codecs will feature MPEG-2 video coding up to 50Mb/s, short or long-GOP, and four uncompressed AES pairs to support high-quality PCM audio or external audio compression pass-through.
Visit SeaChange's booth L917 where these products and capabilities will be shown alongside a collection of demonstrations that recreate Broadcast MediaCluster customer installations from around the world, including those at The Ackerley Group, USA Broadcasting, Mediaset and United Pan-Europe Communications among others.
About SeaChange
SeaChange International, Inc. is the world leader in digital video systems. The Company creates powerful server and software systems that manage, store and distribute professional quality digital video. SeaChange's innovative products are based on a scalable, distributed software architecture and standard technology components to continually deliver exponential improvements in digital video cost-performance. As a result, SeaChange enables broadband, broadcast, satellite and new media companies to streamline operations and reduce costs, allowing for expanded services, new applications and increased revenues. SeaChange is headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts and has product development, support and sales offices throughout the world. Visit www.seachangeinternational.tv/broadcast.html for BMC 1630/50 system specifications.
MediaCluster is a registered trademark of SeaChange International.
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Contact:
SeaChange International
John Coulbourn, 978-897-0100 x3098
johnc@schange.com |
