Warner Bros Belgium Bases Super Fast File-based Broadcast Workflow on Telestream Vantage

Telestream, Inc., provider of video transcoding and workflow automation solutions, announced the implementation of a major Vantage transcode server, file-based content ingest platform and intelligent workflow automation system at Warner Bros International Television Production Belgium.

Working with Belgian Systems Integrator, VP Media Solutions, Warner Bros has created a file-based workflow at its Zaventem-based production facility where all ingest, transcoding, archiving, media asset management (MAM) and storage are supported.

Designed by Warner Bros engineers, who worked with VP Media Solutions’ broadcast technology specialists, the file-based workflows integrates Telestream Vantage alongside production and MAM systems from Avid and CatDV and an archive solution from Oracle/Archiware.

The workflow was commissioned around the turn of the year. Within weeks, it was tested to the limit, supporting Warner Bros’ Thailand-based TV production – Temptation Island. Over a four day period, the Vantage system was used to ingest all the rushes of the latest series of Temptation Island – 30TB of data on at least 750 XDCAM HD discs – to the Avid Isis storage and the CatDV MAM. All assets were re-wrapped from OP1a to OP-Atom during transfer to the correct Avid workspace. At the same time all files were transcoded to H.264 files and ingested in the CatDV MAM system for further browsing and logging. Loggers and directors could access all footage on-premise and also securely in the cloud.

“We were facing short production timescales on this project, so the loggers, directors and editors needed to start immediately and as coordinated as possible,” explained Jens Clinckspoor, workflow designer, Warner Bros. “I have written a lot of workflows – both for content ingest and output – and I was very impressed by the speed, elegance and versatility of the Vantage platform, which saved us a lot of time in production.“

VP Media Solutions’ engineers are trained on Vantage: as a result they can use this toolkit to co-create all kinds of workflows to suit a customer’s specific production requirements. The ability to integrate the Telestream, Avid, CatDV and Archive systems is critical to the operation of the entire production facility at Zaventem.

“VP Media Solutions is our solutions partner for both Telestream and CatDV“, says Talle Leyssens, CTO, Warner Bros. “They really understand our needs and have the right people available to co-build our workflows.“