EditShare, a provider of crossplatform collaborative editing and shared media storage, and Dixon Sports Computing, a specialist in sports video management, have deployed a new HD production workflow at the Cincinnati Reds’ Great American Ball Park.
The installation combines EditShare's shared-storage solutions with Dixon's Sports Management software (Dixon SAM). The fully integrated solution provides an HD-ready shared-storage environment that centralizes media ingest and automates metadata logging. With detailed metadata capture and centralized content catalog, editors can perform enterprise searches of all game media (past and present) and share project files, regardless of size or format.
“During the game, we can be on an edit station selecting hits and strikeouts and putting the highlight package together in a hurry based on information in Dixon,” said Dave Storm, production manager for the Cincinnati Reds. “Then, a month later, somebody can look at that same data from a completely different angle referencing the same metadata via the Dixon software. We pull the media from EditShare — whether it's for a commercial or a video we're putting together for a school appearance. We're using the same tools for completely different purposes.”
The Reds’ 40TB EditShare Storage Series is connected via 10GigE to an HP ProCurve network switch to provide optimal performance for the high-volume HD workflow. Five editors working on Apple Final Cut Pro workstations are connected to the server via GigE and have simultaneous access to the media. Dixon's logging interface monitors house time code during games to match to particular events and also incorporates basic roster and statistical information from the Reds’ DakStats scoring system. Production operators identify the best angles on key plays, creating subclips that are stored on an EVS system. All subclips are automatically rewrapped and moved to the EditShare system, finalizing a complete, integrated media management package with metadata crossreferencing capabilities.
The combined system has proven to be a powerful workflow engine, offering both immediacy and long-term media management for the Reds. Dixon and EditShare will continue to streamline HD workflows into the Reds' 2010 season.
