DataDirect Networks > Case Studies > Accelerate: HD Broadcast

Accelerate: HD Broadcast

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

DDN storage system
Dalet

Tech Stack

File-based workflow
Storage Area Network (SAN)
Digital, file-based production

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Cost Savings

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Use Cases

Factory Operations Visibility & Intelligence
Digital Twin

Services

System Integration
Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

About The Customer

SPEED™ is a member of the Fox Cable Networks family and the nation’s first and foremost cable television network dedicated to motor sports and the passion for everything automotive. From racing to restoration, motorcycles to movies, SPEED delivers quality programming from the track to the garage. Now available in more than 78 million homes in North America, SPEED is among the fastest-growing sports cable networks in the country, home to NASCAR® on SPEED and an industry leader in interactive TV, video on demand, mobile initiatives and broadband services.

The Challenge

Fox Network’s Engineering & Operations team was tasked with designing a file-based workflow solution for SPEED, specifically addressing the requirements to move from SD to HD content throughout the process, ingesting content directly into the Storage Area Network (SAN), creating low-res copies for easy editing, production and advanced editing, supporting Dalet transfers to and from video servers – while enabling 75 concurrent Dalet users to go about their everyday tasks, from logging content to rundown preparation. The team quickly began to leverage their experience from other, similar, projects and turned to high performance DDN® storage and Dalet for the key workflow components. The biggest challenge was timing – only a few weeks after signing the PO the entire system had to be on air in a brand new, purpose-built, 55,000 square foot facility.

The Solution

SPEED’s broadcasting infrastructure is a perfect example of a highly-efficient, file-based broadcasting workflow. The complete workflow incorporates a number of diverse, heterogeneous applications and devices, fully leveraging the performance of the DDN storage system to perform tasks concurrently and in real-time. Fox selected DDN as the central storage for the Dalet-driven workflow because it was robust and DDN could deliver the sustained performance needed to run the workflow efficiently, especially the ability to ingest, clip, edit, transcode and play-out in parallel. When Fox decided to build a completely new facility, they also decided to use this opportunity to transition SPEED from a conventional, SD tape-based workflow to an all-HD digital, file-based workflow, very similar to a newsroom environment. The DDN storage system, SPEED is able to ingest new content, digitize analog content and perform any transcoding that needs to be done concurrently. Now, the only things delivered on tape to the facility are from suppliers or tapes that come out of the archive. Editors are able to quickly access content, share and collaborate on content and move content through the facility without ever going to tape, thus giving the producers the power to make decisions at their desktops, which was a key deciding factor.

Operational Impact

The easy to manage DDN file storage system enables SPEED’s production and broadcasting professionals to have real-time access to digitized content, bringing productivity and workflow efficiencies, and accelerated return on assets (ROA).
With the highest storage density and lowest power consumption, DDN storage dramatically lowers operating cost and use of datacenter real estate.
Provides a flexible and scalable content repository that is already enabled for future storage capacity and performance demands.
The guaranteed, predictable high performance characteristics of the solution enables SPEED to use all applications and devices in a real-time broadcasting workflow, without worrying that one application may cause disruptions such as dropped frames or delays.

Quantitative Benefit

Supports nearly 200 clients in this environment, including a large number of Windows clients and gateways for Dalet clients and processes along with more than a dozen Final Cut Pro® editing bays.
Leveraging approximately 100TB of scalable, broadcast-quality storage.