Reseau France Outre-mer (RFO), a Paris-based broadcaster owned by the France Televisions group, is creating a digital production workflow for nine stations in French-speaking territories around the globe. RFO will centralize its operations in a single location while improving production and workflow efficiencies for all of its stations, regardless of their local geographies.
RFO will support the full roster of programming across its network, including each station that produces a mix of local news, magazine shows and commercials. RFO will deploy multiple Avid and former Pinnacle systems for acquisition, post-production, media management and playout. The installation is currently under way and expected to be complete by Autumn 2006.
The global workflow solution at RFO's headquarters is based around an Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage and networking system. It will interface with eight MediaStream 8000 servers, which include 20 channels of ingest and 60 output channels, and will use an additional 20TB of centralized storage to handle approximately 5,000 hours of MPEG-2 IBP content at 8Mb/s. In addition, 16 Avid editing systems will connect to the production network, including a combination of Avid NewsCutter Adrenaline and Media Composer Adrenaline systems. Avid Unity MediaManager and TransferManager systems will facilitate media management for the workflow, including two-way transfers of files between the Avid Unity ISIS system and the MediaStream servers.
RFO will also deploy additional equipment for its regional centers in New Caledonia, Polynesia and the Reunion Islands. Each site will include an Avid Unity LANshare EX storage and networking system with 4TB capacity, MediaManager, five Media Composer Adrenaline editing systems, and an Avid AirSpeed system for broadcast playout.
Once the installation is complete, RFO also expects to realize new revenue streams by repackaging programs created locally as compilation shows for cable, satellite and ADSL operators in neighboring countries. RFO also plans to create alternate versions of its programs for use on the Internet and mobile phones.
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