With all the content available in digital format, thousands of hours of video footage is now available for editing and browsing at all times
In the time of 24*7 news channels, and breaking news every hour, poses an immense challenge in terms of an operation’s ability to backup, retrieve and archive data efficiently for the media houses. Such is the case of B.A.G Films & Media Limited, an integrated media and entertainment house which has a rich footage of over 50,000 hours of programming in news, chat shows, current affairs, entertainment, soaps, audience based shows, film based shows & infotainment.
The success of a media house also lies in how quickly its creative team can access video footage, audio files, high-resolution images and other content to get ahead of deadlines and beat the competition. With such competetion and scale, the company was
B.A.G. Films & Media is now meeting that challenge head-on with Quantum StorNext File System, StorNext Storage Manager and a Scalar i500 tape library. This combined solution is helping the media company share data faster across applications, while at the same time building reliable and easily accessible digital archives for fast retrieval and longterm storage and data protection.
The Demands of Broadcasting 24×7 B.A.G.
“Films & Media recently established News 24, a national news broadcast operation which runs 24×7. This initiative is part of a larger plan for launching a series of TV channels in the near future, as well as an effort to earn higher Television Rating Points, the yardstick for success in the highly competitive Indian media industry. A critical part of running a 24-hour news operation is identifying, cataloging, searching and retrieving video footage whenever needed, ideally with the ability to quickly access specific clips at the click of a button. With 5 to 7TB of video footage data being generated every day, this was becoming a significant challenge at News 24, particularly given that the large repository of video tapes had to be managed manually. In addition, there was no way to search for specific content by browser—which made identifying a particular segment of footage slow and difficult. “We were experiencing a number of business problems, like slow speed of workflow, high recurring costs and the periodic demand for increases in library capacity,” said Suraj Pal, VP Technology, B.A.G. Films & Media.
The Search for a Solution
When B.A.G. Films & Media began looking for an answer to their storage problems, their wish list was short but precisely targeted at broadcasting challenges. The company wanted to minimize its overall storage costs, including total cost of ownership for long-term retention of business-critical media.
The company also wanted to enable productivity improvements, such as automation of archival and restore functions, reduction of time-to-air performance, and greater ability to research any subject for any program.
Choosing Quantum
After evaluating various solution options, B.A.G. Films & Media chose to implement a Quantum solution consisting of the Quantum StorNext File System, StorNext Storage Manager, and a Scalar i500 tape library. The StorNext File System and Storage Manager provide data sharing and intelligent archiving that are compatible with all industry standard operating systems, server platforms and storage devices. The Scalar i500 combines a highly scalable design and Quantum’s advanced, integrated iLayer management features that together deliver flexibility and unrivaled manageability in heterogeneous, data-intensive environments at both the midrange and enterprise level.
“Besides technology, another compelling factor that convinced us to implement a Quantum storage solution was Quantum’s local presence,” Pal said. “Other alternative solution vendors were either supported by overseas resources or were in the developing stage in India. Quantum had the best available support capacity locally, which went a long way in our selection” says Suraj Pal VP Technology
“Quantum StorNext provides native integration with our Apple Xsan environment,” said Pal. “There is seamless connectivity to Final Cut Server media asset management (MAM) software, where FCS can perform archive/restore functions at both the file and project level through high-speed fiber connectivity and file system driver integration at the OS level.”
Up and Running
The deployment of StorNext took four days and the solution fits smoothly into B.A.G. Films & Media’s existing workflow. The StorNext-based archival capability allowed the company to archive its entire content natively—i.e., without any transcoding of archived content at any stage. This made StorNext the system of choice for all archival needs across the company. Now the company archives and retrieves their entire Final Cut Pro projects with source content and source files. StorNext automatically archives data on a Quantum Scalar i500 tape library with LTO-4 tape drives. By storing the data files on these reliable tape drives (instead of primary disk), B.A.G. Films & Media saves on storage costs as well as electricity and cooling because tapes can be retrieved automatically and quickly, as needed. “With all the content available in digital format, thousands of hours of video footage is now available for editing and browsing at all times,” said Pal. “Not having to search through physical video tapes means specific content can be retrieved faster—and that is vital for any media organization that wants to stay ahead of the competition.”
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