TECH TOOLS RTL II

Archive System RTL II is deploying an integrated digital media asset management system. It includes FlipFactory and ClipMail by Telestream. MEDIEN BULLETIN talked to Christian Andre, Senior Project Manager Media-Systems within the IT/Organisation department about the concept of this installation.

FACTS

Cross Atlantic Medien GmbH is a provider of integrated solutions for the storage,trans- fer and management of digital media. The company,based in Cologne,is the certified re- seller for for Telestream (FlipFacto- ry,ClipMail,and MAP). Cross Atlantic also di- stributes digital transmission products by Spot Rocket,the Screening Room solution for management and re-use of videos by Con- vera and is a reseller of Discreet products, Beautiful Solution Combustion and 3ds max.

nside the new home of RTL II in Grünwald dia asset management system project in Workflow Inear Munich the technicians are still bu- house,“ states Christian Andre, Senior Pro- The focus of the new RTL II workflow is on a sy fitting the workflow patterns to meet ject Manager Mediasystems within the IT- completely tapeless solution.„We will have a the demands of the new era of digital TV. department of RTL II.For this reason there central input area where the incoming mate- Under the direction of external service com- was no open tender competition for the rial is directly fed into the digital archive in high pany CBC Cologne Broadcast Center,the RTL complete project. and low resolution.The material is logged in the II broadcast center started operations at the At RTL II the archive data is already com- database and is then available for everyone at beginning of June (see story in MB 5/04). pletely catalogued and no outside help was the same time,“ explains Andre.The format However, an internal crew of RTL II is still seen as needed for the administration of chosen together with CBC is MXF/IMX. working on an integrated digital media as- metadata.„We only need an asset ma- “We have developed an online/nearline stora- set management system (MAM) with video nagement system for the videotools,“ An- ge concept,“ Andre reports.„It should allow di- archive which shall integrate the legacy IT- dre says.„It should enable functions like vi- rect access to the currently scheduled materi- systems of RTL II’s core business.The IT de- deo browsing, previews on a PC and the as- al from every desk.So far the decision about the partment of RTL II itself is in charge of this sembly of cuesheets.These are applications final supplier for online-storage is open.The li- part of the project. which we can not program in-house.We are brary system to hold all the material has been „We already have realized many projects looking for an external manufacturer for chosen though,and the decision was made for concerning our core business on our own. these.“ RTL II is in discussions with compa- the Petasite SAIT library from Sony. The necessary software for these was com- nies like Dalet,Blue Order and Solutions For Horst Peterjohann, head of IT/organisation at pletely done internally by our own devel- Media.The decision for a supplier should RTL II,describes the design as follows:The me- opers.We therefore kept the planned me- be made in June. dia asset management system will be con-

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nected directly to the video archive, and it will administer centrally all video data and meta- data with information concerning the RTL II co- re business.This includes information about content as well as about licenses and contracts. „All these data are already in our database.We therefore do not need additional software to manage metadata, but just a connection to the video.This is the most important goal to be realized with our project.“ The existing data of the RTL II core business have to be integrated with the videotools of the media asset ma- nagement system by way of an application-si- de interface. “There are three sectors to be integrated with IT-technology in this project: our existing da- RTL II network for digital archive and media asset management tabase, the media asset management sector for video management and the sector HSM hierarchical storage manage- stallation of the FlipFactory we deos.ClipMail enables the automated batch- ment for the technical side of also had very productive coo- import from video-cassettes based on EDL,for the archive.Our IT-depart- peration with the Telestream example.RTL II used this capability to digitize ment therefore works on se- dealer,Cross Atlantic from Co- 6,700 clips.„This is a nice feature not offered by veral tasks, like the operation logne,“ Andre remarks. a simple ingest application,“ says Andre.RTL II of the data processing center, FlipFactory is used as a central used ClipMail to sort and prepare short videos the build-up of the systems, format engine with an eVTR- to be offered for sale as licensing material.The commissioning of the library component and as an ingest- digitized video-clips were then streamed di- and the storage area network solution combined with Clip- rectly from ClipMail to FlipFactory,where they (SAN), and the online-stora- Mail.The ClipMail box by Tele- were converted to a low-resolution format for ge,“ explains Andre.„In the stream serves previews on a PC and com- area of IT-development in the in the digitisa- bined with the database- database sector we are very tion of analog management.„This way we experienced.Within the last Christian Andre, Senior Project video signals. practically had the first trial two years we have added the Manager Mediasystems of „We now have for combining video with IT/organisation department at technical video aspects.“ RTL II two of these in our database,“ said Andre.„If use, but they you don’t want to buy a vi- FlipFactory are in the test deoserver directly,FlipFacto- Within this „new environment“ the IT-crew of lab and not in daily use,“ ex- ry bundled with ClipMail of- RTL II is examining the necessity of ingest-pro- plains Andre.RTL II is not sure, fer an affordable alternati- cedures and the import and export of diverse whether it wants to keep Clip- ve.“ video-formats into and out of the system.„He- Mail as the only solution for ar- The total project asset ma- re we came across FlipFactory by Telestream,“ chive-ingest or to work with vi- nagement and video archive says Andre.The System offers good possibilities deoservers or other ingest-ap- is planned to be realized in Horst Peterjohann, Head of in our tests and high flexibility for transcoding plications.FlipFactory and several phases by RTL II.This IT/organisation department at and formatting, as well as often being found ClipMail were bought to work in RTL II year some sectors only shall as integrated with asset management sy- some areas of asset manage- be automated with the help stems.FlipFactory also is said to be used fre-ment and to gain some experience in spite of of FlipFactory.„We will expand step by step un- quently as a universal format engine for the the current building activities in and around til the MAM system finally digitally controls all production of several formats in post-produc- the new broadcast center.„Last year the archi- material flows in-house.The goal is to have tion installations.„FlipFactory was interesting ve project could not really be started since the each video available ‘a click away’ everywhere for us in regards to throughput,seeing the pos- new building and the broadcast controls had in-house.The complete switch-over to tape- sibility to produce several formats in parallel wi- to be finished first.But with this solution we less video archiving and distribution will take thout having to work with them sequentially,“ have already realized the first steps steps wi- about two years,“ is Andre’s estimate. stresses Andre.„Important for RTL II, as well, is thout delay.“ ClipMail is being used in a pilot the fact that FlipFactory enables the company project.The system was chosen because it of- story: Eckhard Eckstein to create the MXF/IMX format.During the in- fers a „beautiful solution“ for the input of vi- translation: Alex Merck

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