Outdoor Channel has upgraded its existing Harris server and storage system to create new ingest and playout efficiencies while maximizing on-air content protection.
The upgrade, which went live in June, includes a new Harris NEXIO Farad high-volume online storage solution to replace its legacy Harris system. The transition also expedites the ingest process by allowing Outdoor Channel personnel to natively ingest all SD and HD programs.
NEXIO Farad, introduced in 2011, supports the higher-bandwidth and storage needs for larger-scale production applications — including ingest, editing and playout for production, sports, news and live events. Benefits include flexible capacity and bandwidth for storage growth; high availability for fail-safe, continuous operations; and collaboration across facilities for shared access in fast-turnaround environments — vastly reducing time to air.
The transition also minimizes rack space and file-storage requirements by eliminating the need to create and store separate SD and HD files on different storage systems. Harris NEXIO AMP video servers play content directly from Farad shared storage and automatically upconvert or downconvert SD and HD content as required for the desired play-to-air format.
Moreover, content protection is maximized through Harris Intrinsic Mirroring, a unique, patented technology that mirrors content within Farad RAID-601 storage during the ingest process. All servers have fully redundant connections to the Farad shared storage, which ensures channels remain on the air if there is a cabling or related fault.
The ultimate benefit for Outdoor Channel is that the system provides sharable and scalable storage throughout the entire content lifecycle, while offering the highest levels of digital asset protection.
