Harmonic Provides The London Studios With Omneon MediaGrid

Harmonic Inc. announced that The London Studios has
installed an Omneon MediaGrid storage system to enable a tapeless flow of media
from its studios into post-production.

The HD video clips recorded in studio
are transferred along with low-resolution proxy versions to the Omneon
MediaGrid system, which makes media readily available to The London Studios’
post-production team. By providing secure, scalable media storage and robust
bandwidth capacity, the Omneon MediaGrid eliminates The London Studios’
reliance on tape and enables an efficient workflow between two key
business areas.

"We have found that our clients are very keen to take
advantage of the tapeless workflow supported by the Omneon MediaGrid,"
said Chris Cook, director of engineering support at The London Studios.
"In addition to being a faster and more elegant workflow, it’s also a
cost- and time-saving model. We’ve cut out the expense of buying HD tape and
running tape decks, replacing them with file-based storage that we can expand
easily without disrupting ongoing operations. We’d been proposing this type of
model for some time, and Harmonic provided the missing link."

Wholly-owned by ITV, The London Studios provides studio and
post-production facilities for ITV and third parties. The company’s
installation of the Omneon MediaGrid storage system brings the entire
production and editing workflow into the tapeless domain. Having been qualified
with both EVS and Avid, the Omneon MediaGrid storage system fits neatly with
The London Studios existing systems.

HD media recorded onto EVS systems in studios now is transferred
to the Omneon MediaGrid, which provides 400 hours of HD storage. Editors
working in an Avid environment can access the low-resolution version of media
for offline editing and the higher-resolution version for online editing. Once
material has been edited, the finished project can be pushed back to the Omneon
MediaGrid system for storage.

"The proven interoperability and stability of the
Omneon MediaGrid system, as well as its scalability both in terms of capacity
and bandwidth, are critical to a company such as The London Studios," said
Geoff Stedman, senior vice president for corporate marketing at Harmonic.
"The content stored on the Omneon MediaGrid system is extremely valuable,
and continuous and fast access to this media ensures that the company and its
clients can realize a streamlined, highly efficient end-to-end workflow."

The London Studios took its Harmonic storage system online
earlier this year and, as a result of quick uptake by clients, already is
expanding the system to accommodate another 300 hours of HD content. The
storage system currently is fed by two of The London Studios’ larger studios,
and the company plans to continue expanding the Omneon MediaGrid system as it
upgrades and connects additional studios.