Quantum, a proven global expert in big data management and data protection, recently announced its StorNext software and appliances have helped nc+, Poland’s premier pay-TV broadcaster, increase its production output by 30 percent with a transition to an all-digital content workflow.
Created from a strategic partnership between Groupe CANAL+ and TVN Group, nc+ offers its 2.5 million customers up to 180 channels, including 50 in HD and a range of live sporting events. A new all-digital infrastructure based on StorNext helped the broadcaster streamline and simplify management of current assets of more than1.5PB and will easily accommodate another 1PB of content nc+ expects to add over the next year.
The previous infrastructure at nc+ was based on videotape — a slow and manual process for producing new material. Re-using existing content was also complex and time-consuming. In creating its new digital system, nc+ had four main objectives:
- Streamline the workflow for new and existing content
- Reduce editing and post-production time
- Automate the transcoding process
- Make it easier and faster to adopt and support emerging platforms, including mobile devices.
Working with SAD, a video systems integrator, nc+ selected an open systems-capable storage system that integrates access to content across best-of-breed heterogeneous applications. Quantum’s StorNext File System and StorNext Storage Manager software and StorNext AEL6000 Archives met those needs and were critical to achieve end-to-end workflow efficiency as the backbone of nc+’s new infrastructure.
The StorNext File System controls 200TB of nc+’s near-line disk archive: It ingests all the file-based content, holds low-resolution proxies, and makes content available to a dozen production, quality control, transcoder, and playout servers over a high-speed Fibre Channel link. In addition, with tens of thousands of hours of film, recorded sports video and other content to store, the nc+ team relies on StorNext Storage Manager (SNSM) to provide a tiered storage system with one common storage pool that combines the capacity of the near-line disk with digital LTO tapes in two StorNext AEL6000 Archives. In the repository, recent assets are all on disk, but SNSM moves older content to tape for longer-term storage, automatically making two copies of each asset for redundancy.
