CBS Television Distribution is airing its entertainment news programs “Entertainment Tonight,” and “The Insider” in HD with the help of Grass Valley K2 HD media servers combined with Editware Fastrack hybrid editing systems, and Avid Media Composer Nitris DX editing systems, Avid Unity ISIS shared storage, and the Avid Interplay nonlinear workflow engine.
On the CBS Studio Center stages, more than 250 people work together to produce multiple versions of the 30-minute syndicated entertainment news shows. One of the many challenges was getting all of the post produced packages, bumpers, and promos from the post production stage to the “ET” and “The Insider” control rooms.
To guarantee workflow productivity, Grass Valley and Editware worked together to adapt the Fastrack hybrid editing system to operate seamlessly with K2 to provide CBS with an edit controller that controls the K2 in both linear and nonlinear modes.
“ET” and “The Insider” share a total of 64 Grass Valley K2 HD channels comprised of SAN and standalone configurations. Each show uses a combination of K2 AppCenter and Editware Fastrack NLE control to support a time sensitive workflow. Show feeds are played directly from K2 under the control of the Grass Valley K2 AppCenter application and/or Crispin Automation.
The new post production system is designed around an all-HD Avid environment with 26 Avid Media Composer Nitris DX and two Symphony Nitris DX systems sharing media via 192 TB of Avid Unity ISIS storage. The post team has developed a streamlined file-handling process that enables the automated transfer of HD material from the Avid editing systems to the Grass Valley K2 servers.
With multiple versions of both “ET” and “The Insider” being created daily, the final video packages are often still being edited either on Avid systems or directly on the Grass Valley K2 servers using the Fastrack edit systems as the shows begin airing.
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