As IT facilities are designed and built, Silicon Graphics is betting that equipment interoperability will be a major issue for broadcasters. At NAB, the company demonstrated a broadcast workflow with end-to-end compatibility from ingest to play-to-air. The system was made possible by the new the Material eXchange Format (MXF) file format.
Content sourced from a Sony XDCAM player was ingested on a SGI Media Server for Broadcast system, wrapped in MXF and stored on an SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS SAN server. It interoperated with an Avid non-linear editor, automation from Harris and used software from MassTech for asset management, archive browse and EDL prep for the Avid system. Once edited on the SAN, the file was played directly to air while maintaining its MXF compatibility for later use.
SGI also replicated a post-production workflow incorporating leading applications, all on different operating systems, from Alias, Apple, Discreet, Interactive Effects, mental images and Quantel. Multiple content creation seats on any operating system can now share SD, HD and 2K files in a truly heterogeneous SAN architecture by leveraging the unique capabilities of the SGI shared filesystem CXFS.
Chris Golson, senior director, market strategy, media industries, SGI, said that the company has been successful in delivering IT digital infrastructures that offer significant interoperability with scalable InfiniteStorage SAN solutions based on its CXFS shared filesystem.
Among the broadcast and post-production facilities transitioning their facilities to IT infrastructures using SGI InfiniteStorage solutions are Crawford Communications, Czech Television, Danish Broadcasting, Südwestrundfunk (SWR), Georgia Public Broadcasting, Universal Studios, Tippett Studio, The Orphanage, Image Film, Reel FX Creative Studios, EFILM and Pacific Title & Art Studio.
For more on SGI technology, visit: www.sgi.com.
