elements.tv

in collaboration with elements.tv

If steady and reliable performance is crucial

How steady data accessibility and con- sistent performance is key to successful large-scale post-production

ITV Studios GmbH, founded in 1999 as Granada Produktion für Film und Fernsehen GmbH, is one of the most successful production companies in Germany. Owned by the British media corporation ITV plc with additional entities in Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Stockholm und Paris, the German branch with offices in Cologne and Berlin established an impressive produc- tion portfolio, including the 10-year-running daily series “Das perfekte Dinner” on VOX and the reality show “Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus!” on RTL, adapted from Britain’s original format “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!”.

Further successful productions are the neo-personality-documentation “Kessler ist…” on ZDF, the cooking show “Grill den Henssler” on VOX, and var- ious quiz shows like “Gefragt – Gejagt” and “Quizduell” on . Other national and international clients of ITV Studios Germany are WDR, SWR, RTL ITV Studios Germany Reception II, kabel eins, Schweizer Radio & Fernsehen (SRF), and Disney.

Topic: Central MAM One-stop shop, out- Stability is the number Project: ITV Studios Germany standingly continuous one priority Location: Cologne (GER) Only very few production companies pro- An outstandingly steady and continuous Challenge: Provide duce this many TV shows simultaneously; post-production workflow like the one at utmost reliability hence, it is only logical that ITV Studios ITV Studios Germany doesn’t leave much and stability Germany also runs its own post-pro- room for failure. When, in the early days of System used: duction facility. With most shows of the their small postproduction, the infrastruc- ELEMENTS ONE and category “docutainment” require epi- ture Page 3 ELEMENTS.tv periodically Media Library sodes of between 30 and 180 min program caused troubles with data accessibility length, ITV Studios Germany maintains and dropped frames, and even entire nine in-house editing suites. All suites streams failed to perform occasionally, are equipped with Avid Media Composer, ITV Studios Germany turned to ELEMENTS. Sapphire, After Effects, Photoshop and Another issue ITV Studios Germany was Squeeze, whereas two use in addition also struggling with, was an inconvenient and the Symphony Option, DaVinci Resolve troublesome user and client manage- and Adobe Premiere CC. All suites are ment that complicated the daily business. connected to the server via 10-Gb Ether- Time-consuming manual asset manage- net. The usual editing format is DNxHD120, ment to make media files available across and oftentimes three to six simultaneous the different platforms increased the video streams are required. effort to fulfill certain tasks noticeably

Depending on the recorded format and quality, the shows are being onlined to DNxHD 185 10bit, before grading.

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“For us, the main ELEMENTS ONE and benefits of the system Media Library to the User-friendly and easy project management lie in the outstandingly ELEMENTS extensive set of workflow rescue management tools includes a comprehen- easy maintenance sive project management feature, allowing and management of Ever since ELEMENTS ONE with the em- for easy and efficient management of proj- users and workspaces, bedded Media Library was installed, the ect without any training required. former problems have been eliminated. All impeccable reliabaility editing suites at ITV Studios Germany are ELEMENTS’ user-friendly and fully intu- of the performance, connected to the central storage, sharing itive web-based interface provides the and the fail-safe resil- media files across all applications, includ- option to manage both users and systems ing Avid. easily and effortlessly from one spot, ience. Also the prompt while ELEMENTS Media Library with its and knowledgeable Simplification of Client and User powerful search engine, makes assets service provided by the Management available for users anywhere, allowing to ELEMENTS unique web-based GUI pro- present their media assets through the team at ELEMENTS is vides all tools necessary to efficiently same HTML5 platform. remarkable.” manage the network. Being fully intuitive, there are virtually no IT skills required to Siegfried Bacher, even manage the users and clients easily Still growing Head of Postproduction, and quickly. ITV Studios Germany ITV Studios Germany is still growing, add- Reliable, consistent performance ing more editing suites on a regular basis. ELEMENTS innovative and unique techni- ELEMENTS ONE handles the increased cal design delivers consistent high per- requirements without any loss of perfor- formance by default, providing the best mance. and fastest possible throughput available today.

Seamless collaboration for all worksta- tions ELEMENTS ONE grants client access via AFP, SMB and NFS, while providing a truly shared file system by enabling all clients to share files natively amongst virtually all NLE applications.

Support of Avid bin-locking and Project Sharing With native Avid bin-locking and project sharing support, ELEMENTS ONE eases the collaboration for every project signifi- cantly. “ELEMENTS is always ready and willing to make adjustments, both regarding hardware and software. The most pleasant circum- stance about them is that they never leave me hanging when I have questions.”

Siegfried Bacher, Head of Postproduction, ITV Studios Germany

ITV Case Study

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