National Geographic Digital Media has installed the VideoBank media asset management system for its Digital Motion footage business. The VideoBank system will manage National Geographic's collection of programming and simultaneously capture three formats of video: uncompressed 10-bit digital video, 26-Mbit MPEG-2 and 1.5-Mbit MPEG-1.
The system includes two VideoBank ingest encoder workstations, a Fibre Channel SAN storage system, VideoBank transcoders and a 750-TB Sony PetaSite digital tape archive. VideoBank logging stations allow National Geographic to select and assign attributes to clips during the archive process and the VideoBank Playlist Producer provides broadcast-quality digital playout.
"National Geographic's library is a unique resource. The new asset management and archive system serve the dual purpose of preserving that resource while making it more easily accessible," said Cody Claxton, director of video technology at National Geographic Digital Media. "We chose to work with VideoBank because they could deliver a time-code-enabled system that is broadcast quality and could be delivered within the tight schedule we required."
National Geographic's documentary, feature film, and kids programming and production units will also use this system.
