The public German broadcasting stations that form the ARD broadcasting pool have taken another step toward seamless networking and tapeless workflow with an MXF transfer system implemented by D.A.V.I.D.
Besides conventional program transfers, the broadcasting stations and the ARD hub now have the option of exchanging individual reports or entire broadcasts in the standard MXF video file format. Since the beginning of 2007, more than 15,000 packets of video footage have made their way across the ARD network using the D.A.V.I.D. system. Transfer of video files is effected in a largely automated fashion similar to e-mail exchange. As a result, there’s a significant reduction of complexity as well as time and cost savings in daily production work.
All connected broadcasting stations work with a headend for sending and receiving video data files coded in standard MXF, each with an additional file containing descriptive metadata. D.A.V.I.D. also provides solutions for converting proprietary file formats into MXF and for transcoding incoming foreign formats into those used by the respective broadcasting station as needed. The data transfers use the ARD-owned ATM network. Faster than real time, individual contributions or entire broadcasts can be transferred point-to-point or point-to-multipoint broadcasting stations, or via the ARD hub using the TCP/IP protocol. This works irrespective of whether the sending and receiving stations use different file formats internally for production and/or playout.
For more information, visit www.david-gmbh.de.
