TVNZ, New Zealand’s national television public broadcaster, is transforming its operations to a completely tapeless digital workflow.
At the center of the revamped workflow are Omneon storage and playout devices, which were delivered last month and are expected to be online in September.
TVNZ has used an Omneon Spectrum server since 2006 for production storage and playout and is now adding a 34TB, 1000-hour MediaGrid for central storage, collaborative production and archiving. In addition, three Omneon MediaDeck integrated compact video servers will be attached to the MediaGrid to provide ingest and playout for SD and HD content.
According to Khalid Naseem, TVNZ head of broadcast engineering, the system is the culmination of a vision for a tapeless environment to handle all program content from ingest to playout developed during the past five to six years.
TVNZ, one of the largest broadcasters in the island nation, operates two free-to-air TV channels, TV ONE and TV2, available throughout the North and South Islands. The broadcaster recently announced a major expansion and divergence into alternative digital media platforms, including the Internet and mobile phones. TVNZ plans to launch two new digital channels in the next year available via satellite service and terrestrial broadcast.
The Omneon systems provide a file-based IP environment that allows content and proxies of any resolution to be distributed around the network at speeds faster than real time.
