Nashville’s CBS affiliate, WTVF, has selected Medway software tools from Marquis Broadcast to speed up the operations workflow.
“We are now using Medway to import files into Avid ISIS for editing, check them into Avid Interplay and send finished sequences to the Avid AirSpeed MultiStreams for playout,” said Mike Rose, WTVF’s chief photographer. “This saves exporting/importing times and helps all workflows because much of the work is ‘farmed out,’ therefore not tying up the editor.”
Rose explained that a big factor in the selection of the Medway application was its support for XDCAM 35 EX.
“Getting clips checked into Interplay is perhaps where we use it most,” Rose said. “Medway watches a folder where our Rhozet Carbon Coder drops clips that have been flipped to XDCAM 35EX (such as user–generated content or network footage from CNN or CBS ) and checks them into a “Medway” folder in our Interplay database. We need to drop 50 to 70 clips a day. Before Medway, all of these clips would be ingested via baseband.”
Rose noted that eliminating the need for such baseband content ingesting made the WTVF operation more efficient.
“While real-time ingest may be more comfortable to old-time editors than importing a file, baseband ingest requires continual monitoring and cueing,” said Rose. “Exporting content to the Omneon server once required a Quick Time export on the editor level, which took a good deal of time as XDCAM EX uses Long-GOP compression. Provided that any effects have been rendered, now, the only exporting is audio--which is quick--and the AAF file. This allows the editor to move onto other work.”
