TV Globo Puts Dalet Media Life at Center of Entertainment Production

Dalet Digital Media Systems, a French provider of software-based solutions for media organizations, has announced that TV Globo, the world’s second-largest commercial TV network by annual revenue, is placing its Media Life, based on the Dalet Galaxy Media Asset Management (MAM) platform, at the heart of its entertainment archive.

The producer of telenovelas (soap operas) is deploying an archiving and content preparation workflow utilizing all three Dalet platforms: Dalet Brio for high-density ingest and Dalet AmberFin high-quality transcoding, all under the control of Dalet Galaxy enterprise MAM to enable the manipulation of digital files for archive purposes for all entertainment content (including telenovelas) produced at the network’s Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo hubs. The Dalet installation will also enable the distribution of content to internal and external users.

“We produce a vast amount of content each year, including telenovelas and promos, and wanted a means of increasing the efficiency and enhancing the production values of our operations with a comprehensive file-based workflow from ingest through to archive,” explains Thiago Abreu, project manager,TV Globo. “The solution had to work effortlessly with our legacy systems, prove itself extensible to accommodate our rising production and distribution demands, and it had to promote collaborative workflows by opening up our production silos. We are confident, along with Sony, our primary partner on this major project, that we have found the answer in Dalet.“

Ranked as one of the biggest media companies in the world, TV Globo produces around 2,400 hours of entertainment annually and reaches 99.5% of the Brazilian population through its network of 122 owned and affiliate TV stations. The network’s international operations include seven pay-per-view TV channels and a production and distribution division that distributes domestic sports and entertainment content to more than 190 countries around the world. The organization’s studio production base is located in Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro, and known locally as Projac.

The solution at Projac is systems integrated by Sony Professional Services and architected to extend TV Globo’s file-based workflow from ingest into archive. Sony selected the Media Life solution, which includes a broadcast-specific business process management workflow engine, advanced production and media preparation tools, and a single and centralized content repository for housing multimedia content. The complete solution also includes Dalet Brio for ingest acquisition and QC playback as well as Dalet AmberFin for transcoding.

The Dalet platforms interlock with a number of industry-standard, third-party tools to underpin production end-to-end. These include integration with Avid Interplay and Avid Symphony for production, with Tektronix Cerify for file-based QC review, and with Front Porch DIVA and Sony’s Optical Disc Archive System.

“This is Dalet’s first major deal in Brazil and is hugely significant given TV Globo’s superlative reputation for content production and distribution, not only in South America, but globally,” says Julien Decaix, GM, Americas, Dalet. “The file-based workflow at the broadcaster’s entertainment production HQs was previously only within an Avid environment, but in alliance with Sony and TV Globo, we are able to manage all digital files and all associated metadata as well as legacy tape content, on ingest and throughout the asset’s entire lifecycle, including export for all internal and international distribution and onwards to the Sony Optical Disk Archive. This new workflow, based on Dalet’s business solution encompassing all three main platforms, embraces TV Globo’s fast-paced production environment, operations and business, and streamlines the amount of work needed by the broadcaster’s prolific production division day-to-day.“

Content is ingested into the Dalet Galaxy content catalog and transcoded by Dalet AmberFin nodes during ingest from the Sony SStP format to XDCAM HD 50. Web-based search and browse of material is enabled by Dalet Webspace clients while, thanks to a set of Dalet Xtend modules, media can be browsed, previewed and exchanged smoothly to and from Avid Interplay.

Dalet solutions and products are designed around open-IT standards, enabling TV Globo to develop integration with Dalet using the SOAP Dalet API. This enables media to be migrated from TV Globo’s existing MAM database.

Dalet systems are used around the world by many thousands of individual users at hundreds of TV and Radio content producers, including public broadcasters (ABS-CBN, BBC, CBC, DR, France TV, RTBF, RFI, Russia Today, RSR & TSR, RT Malaysia, VOA, WDR), commercial networks and operators (Antena 3, Canal+, FOX, eTV, Mediaset, Orange, Time Warner Cable, Warner Bros., Sirius XM Radio), and government organizations (Canadian House of Commons, The European Commission, Parliament of South Australia).