Euronews Selected Silex Media

Euronews in Lyon, France, are using a new centralized Linux based storage system allowing shared access for their NLE clients. To ensure that the implementation of the new system was accomplished without affecting regular 24/7 operations, Euronews chose the solution provider Silex Media GmbH for the integration of the storage system into the existing news production environment. The new system will be used for all ingest and editing tasks while the existing storage system mainly serves as storage for edited material and as an interface to the archive. As a pan-European news format, Euronews are broadcasting their contributions in eight languages.

Silex Media was responsible for re-establishing the interfaces between the heterogeneous system components, as well as integrating the new Linux based workflows. During a planning and design phase, Silex Media identified multiple solutions from which the joint team of Euronews and Silex Media’s professional services then selected the most appropriate. Besides delivering and implementing the SGI storage system, existing hardware and software components from Aveco, SGI and Avid had to be integrated with, which also included some specific developments. Integrating these different systems during regular operations was the main challenge for the joint team.

To speed up the editing process DAVID Systems’ Hydrogen Media Accelerator (HMA) central ingest service was used to support the system workflow by adding edit-while-ingest functionality. The HMA technology has allowed Euronews to record more than 15 simultaneous streams on video servers, and provides access to the content of the 20 editing stations on the new shared storage. This content is available in less than 5 seconds after the recording has started.

“Silex Media offered a cost-efficient and pragmatic solution which is exactly tailored to our needs”, said Cécile Levaux, Euronews Director Resources and Technologies. “Together we also succeeded in implementing everything without affecting our production workflows. After regular testing, the system is now in full production and running without any disturbances. Based on the positive experience we made with Silex Media we look forward to a long-term partnership.”