German public broadcasting station S’dwestrundfunk (SWR), or Southwestern Broadcasting, has expanded its infrastructure with a new Omneon (now part of Harmonic) HD Spectrum media server that supports studio production at SWR’s facilities in Baden-Baden. The new system brings all of the advantages of a file-based workflow, including speed and efficiency to get content to air faster.
The transition of its production studios is the latest step in SWR’s overall plan to implement tapeless operations. The elimination of studio tapes from the production process and the use of a common format from acquisition to playout streamlines production while also reducing both capital and operational costs.
The new HD Spectrum system at SWR supports recording and playback in two studios. ClipJOCKEY by Solutions for Media (S4M) manages and controls server operations during production and provides user-defined presets that enable dynamic allocation of centralized media server I/O, storage, and NLEs to different productions or studios. Takes can be fused together in place on the Spectrum system to create a complete clip or sent to a Final Cut Pro edit system for craft editing.
SWR uses MXF4Mac software to enable native support for MXF files in QuickTime applications and, in turn, to introduce high interoperability and efficiency throughout — from on-set recording with the Spectrum server, through edit-in-place with Final Cut Pro, to playout via the Spectrum servers.
Designed as a modular system, the Spectrum can be configured with just a few channels and entry-level storage or with many dozens of channels and storage for hundreds of hours of content.
