case study | Post production United Kingdom | EMEA

EditShare helps Emmerdale lead the way in UK’s new digital programme delivery format One of the UK’s most successful and longest-running soap operas, Emmerdale, has made the switch to a complete range of EditShare’s ingest and storage solutions as part of the production’s move to a new studio complex. Not only did it improve the workflow, the move and subsequent infrastructure upgrade resulted in Emmerdale becoming the first production to comply with the UK’s new delivery file format and blaze a trail for others to follow.

Produced by ITV Yorkshire The problem This initially resulted in the Television and celebrating its 40th Emmerdale’s supervising editor, utilisation of a previous Final Cut anniversary this year, the popular Gary Westmorland, explained Pro setup which took the character-based series depicts the reasons for the move and high-level data storage away rural life in the Yorkshire Dales and, the resulting move to EditShare from the Avid Meridian-based production-wise, combines both storage and ingest solutions: “The offline storage, but involved a lot exterior scenes shot on location show was being produced using of conversion of files between and at a dedicated studio complex a tape-based HD digi-beta system formats and then back into tape. in Leeds. with Avid Unity, and in a building “We did this for two years until As the show’s popularity grew, which had become very tired and both a new facility and storage so did the demand for more was beginning to show its age. system became a necessity,” said Westmorland episodes. This culminated in the “This arrangement was, and broadcasting of six episodes every had been, very successful but ITV Yorkshire had a large studio week for the UK market and two the whole set-up was designed space constructed in 1969 which episodes shown internationally. for fewer episodes each week, was currently unused due to a shift The increase in production and the increase in production in programming at the UK’s third- schedule highlighted serious to six episodes per week meant largest broadcaster. In 2010 the flaws with the show’s production our current storage system was Emmerdale team identified this facilities, so in 2010 Emmerdale full most of the time. We ended facility as the perfect place for the moved to its new home at ITV up constantly bouncing off the show’s new home and undertook Yorkshire in Leeds. headroom of the storage and it an extensive refurbishment of became very clear we needed to both the building and its main make some changes.” infrastructure. case study | Post production United Kingdom | EMEA

Gary Westmorland was tasked there ever be any issues with the and meet our precise technical with identifying a post-production equipment. Our main requirement specifications, but also be simple solution to cope with the demands was that we wanted our directors to use and flexible. EditShare of the increased schedule, and to and editors to be comfortable certainly had these points covered also facilitate a major transfer from using a system they knew well, but the decision to go with the tape-based SD to file-based HD in and to have a single, effective system was also down to the one move. ‘behind-the-scenes’ system to agility of the company to deliver meet our specific needs.” exactly what we need and develop The result was the selection of solutions for us.” Avid Media Composer systems for the edit suites and a full Adapting to a EditShare was the only system that EditShare system for their media prescribed workflow management needs, including could meet our entire criteria, as well Emmerdale has a production Flow, XStream, Geevs as being the best option in terms of method consisting of three and ArkDisk. price point. cameras per gallery in the studio, Gary Westmorland “We looked at various systems and traditionally the production available on the market by visiting team will record the three un-cut trade shows and talking to people feeds from the three iso-cameras within the industry and EditShare with the addition of a fourth vision The Solution was the only system that could mix feed. EditShare was the only “We were very keen not to have a meet our entire criteria, as well as system identified which could offer multi-vendor solution, for various being the best option in terms of the team the ability to record the reasons,” said Westmorland. price point,” said Westmorland. three camera streams and pick up “We didn’t want a mix of devices “For us it was vital for the system a sequence from the vision mixer, and tools to complicate matters to be able to play-back and sync which means there is no need to and cause us headaches should a number of different streams record the fourth channel. case study | Post production United Kingdom | EMEA

“It’s a great asset of the EditShare Further to this requirement Partnership’s (DPP) new Technical system,” said Westmorland, “as we Emmerdale needed some and Metadata Standards for file- are able to pick up the cuts from additional functionality which based programme delivery. the back of the tally on the vision EditShare were able to work into Through the DPP, seven major mixer, which the software then the system. This included the broadcasters (BBC, ITV, turns into a sequence made up ability to record in parallel to the Channel 4, Sky, Channel 5, S4C from the iso angles. This instantly XStream storage solution and and UKTV) agreed the UK’s first saves us 25 per cent of our storage the ArkDisk situated in a different common file format, structure and space, and in theory it saves 25 per building, and then perform a data wrapper to enable TV programme cent bandwidth. check between the two files. delivery by digital file in guidelines “When the sequence is made “This was a requirement in our launched in early 2012. and we drop it into the Media workflow and EditShare were “The new internationally-agreed Composer environment, we simply flexible enough to ensure it format is AVCi100 AS-11 for HD press a button which can bring up worked exactly as we needed it, as files,” said Westmorland, “and we’re a quad-split of the angles, which is well as performing modifications proud of being the first, and so far something we’d never seen before to the Studio MC software and to only, UK programme, to conform with any other supplier - certainly the graphical user interface. It was to the new standard and offer this not one which gave us that ability this level of flexibility, along with compatibility end-to-end. at both the front-end and in the being within our budget, which “The way our workflow is set up edit suites.” was behind the decision to go for and the equipment and software an EditShare system.” we’re using means we’re able to massively reduce the time EditShare were flexible enough to ensure Trailblazers in new we would previously spend delivery file format converting one format to another. it worked exactly as we needed it... it was We film on location in a native this level of flexibility, along with being The move to a new facility and the introduction of a new workflow AVC-Intra format, ingest and within our budget, which was behind the back-up the file, edit and package decision to go for an EditShare system. allowed Emmerdale to be the first British television production the clips without having to change Gary Westmorland to adopt The Digital Production the codec at all. case study | Post production United Kingdom | EMEA

their storage and workflow Flow Browse alongside P2 rushes solutions, the production has (AV-Intra native format) The EditShare system’s flexibility of become a pioneer within both ITV handling almost any file format without Clips moved across to Avid and the UK television industry. environment (no codec changes codec changes is a huge plus. required) Gary Westmorland The Workflow Clips sent to four Avid Media “Not only does this save time Location: Composer (v6) edit suites but it avoids any degradation Ikegami cameras Complete edits sent to one of two of the footage and limits the online suites (Avid Symphony) P2 media storage (AV-Intra native compression normally associated format) Sound synced in dubbing suite with converting files multiple with Pro Tools (synced in seconds Flow Ingest (AVC-Intra 100 into times. The EditShare system’s from EditShare storage) flexibility of handling almost any Media Management Suite) Quality control and transmission file format without codec changes Studio: packaging – still all in AVC-Intra 100 is a huge plus.” Ikegami cameras via Geevs and The move to fully-HD file-based Studio MC has been a success for Emmerdale, XStream Storage (96 TB) and and with EditShare’s help with Geevs Storage

EditShare Americas EditShare Asia-Pacific EditShare EMEA 3 Brook Street 6 Garden City Office Park Clifton House, Bunnian Place Watertown Unit 22 & 23, 2404 Logan Road Basingstoke, Hants MA 02472, United States Eight Mile Plains, QLD 4113, Australia RG21 7JE, UK E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected] T: +1 617 782 0479 T: +61 7 3171 2950 T: +44 20 7183 2255