Mike Edwards is the Engineering Project Manager at PERFORM, a digital media company based in Feltham, UK.
PERFORM has been in existence since 2007 and although we have our headquarters in the UK, we employ 470 staff worldwide. We distribute content in a number of forms – video, editorial, audio, and data – across multiple platforms, to millions of sport fans around the world. PERFORM currently owns or manages 346 digital channels and streams over 15,000 live events, distributes 15,000 editorial stories, and 8,000 video news stories every year.
Last summer, PERFORM decided to expand its editing capabilities in the UK by building two new Avid edit suites. Our intention was to use these suites for OMNISPORT, our dedicated sport news service that enables multi-platform broadcasters to easily feed formatted and cleared global sports news content across their TV, online, and mobile services.
As Engineering Project Manager, I decided to attend the IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam to investigate equipment for the two Avid edit suites, as well as generally see what else was new. Among the items on my shopping list were waveform monitors.
As I was walking through Hall 8, I came across the DK-Technologies stand and stopped to demo the company’s products. It really was a fortuitous chance encounter because had it not been for the position of the DK stand, and the excellent demo I received from UK Director Andy Page, I would not have known anything about the company’s PT0 series of waveform monitor products.
Andy talked me through the range and explained all the relevant features. The unit that particularly caught my eye was the entry level PT0710M. This is based on DK’s PT0760M HD/SD waveform monitor and offers a reduced feature set without any compromise on quality.
What I especially like about this unit is that it can easily be upgraded to the full facilities of the PT0760M. You purchase a frame and then have the option of adding additional cards, as and when needed. This means that if our requirements change and we need additional features, we can upgrade the units we already have without facing the hassle and cost of replacing the actual hardware.
We placed an order for two units. These have now been installed in our new Avid suites in London where they are working very well.
Over the next few months we plan to expand our operations overseas and we will be including more DK units in those buildings for a variety of different roles. Our overseas facilities need something that can be accessed remotely over the LAN. DK’s PT0710M waveform monitors offer LAN control, which means that our operators will be able to view sources at remote locations via the network.
We also hope to have a few shared units for our VOD Avid Newscutter clipping suites so that our VOD teams can use them for color correction and audio metering. Our clipping stations don’t usually require the use of a waveform monitor but we realized that if the clipping stations had access to a waveform monitor and audio meters during busy periods, it would reduce the time required for finishing in the Avid Composer suites.
The DK solution allows us to have a shared waveform monitor on the router which we can access remotely from the suite over the LAN. This means that we don’t have to go down the expensive route of equipping all of the clipping suites with waveform monitors that will only be used for a few hours a day.
As a new media company, PERFORM is always looking for new media products that suit our multi-platform products. DK’s PT0710M fits the bill perfectly because we can easily upgrade the software and hardware on the systems. This, combined with the LAN control, was a major selling point and we hope to get the shared units in the very near future.
CATEGORIES
LATEST ARTICLES