Discovery Communications Selects QStar HSM

QStar Technologies, Inc. announced that Discovery Communications, the world’s number one nonfiction media company, has selected its HSM software to retain and preserve translated language files used for repurposing English language video content for international markets.  

Discovery Communications has more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries making the distribution of multi-lingual content pertinent to its business activities. Its London-based Language Operations Group relies on QStar archive to retain and manage content in 14 dubbed languages and nine subtitled languages, helping to provide the broadest possible market availability for its popular video assets.

Discovery deployed the QStar HSM software running on a Windows server alongside a Blu-ray optical library from DISC. The archive solution is designed to meet the growing storage and retention demands of the Language Operations Group. Discovery’s archive of translated audio and subtitle content is expected to exceed more than a million files in the short term and will continue to grow rapidly. Given the potential for content reuse and repurposing, the Language Operations Group plans to retain these assets for at least ten years.

Language content in the QStar archive is accessed both internally by Discovery and by external contractors through several applications including QStar’s MediaNET management platform. One key reason Discovery selected the QStar software was the application-independent file system interface. The QStar archive supports multiple applications and easily accommodates future application changes without impacting the archived content. The HSM solution also offers transparent support for magnetic disk caching and automates staging of data to the Blu-ray library. The cache gives users quick access to files and the Blu-ray library provides longevity and security using WORM (Write Once Read Many) media. This combination creates a resilient archive environment.

"It was essential to integrate the archive with several existing applications including MediaNET," explained Darren Breeze, director of broadcast technology at Discovery Communications. "QStar‚s standard file system interface makes application integration simple, saving us time and effort, while providing the flexibility to make changes as the archive evolves. It’s also critical that the archive be reliable since we have strict deadlines for our translated content. Our experience with the QStar HSM software has been positive."

"The Language Operations Group at Discovery is a great example of a departmental archive that makes a key contribution to the overall success of an organization," commented Dave Thomson, senior VP of sales at QStar. "We are very pleased that Discovery has chosen the QStar archive software to play a role in the monetization and delivery of their exceptional video content to subscribers around the world."