COMPANY - Clients - Volvo Ocean Race

The CatDV-DAX media asset management and archive solution provides us with a leading edge video workflow which also proves to be very cost-efficient.
Mr. Andrew Ferguson, Head of Technology & New Media, Volvo Ocean Race.

The company
A gruelling battle against wind and waves. Intense discomfort for the crew on each boat for weeks or months on end. The ultimate test of sailing skill and physical stamina. The Volvo Ocean Race is the sailing event of the year, eight yachts racing around the world to win the cup and prove they're the best.

The event is held every three years. This year's competition runs from October 2008 to June 2009 and is being televised around the world.

To support the television requirements the race headquarter at Fareham in the south of England has a complete HD broadcast production facility. The library management software that runs the heart of the system is CatDV, provided by Square Box Systems Ltd.

The challenge
The broadcast system consists of various edit suits and Apple XServe RAID file servers running SANmp. In total there is more than 20 terabytes of shared storage. Early 2008, the SAN storage was filled for more than 95% with footage from previous races. Either the central storage system needed to be expanded further or a deep archive system had to be put in place to off-load the primary storage. 
  
In order to qualify, the archiving system needed to satisfy a large variety of requirements, such as ensuring longevity of the archived data, extendibility over time and providing additional copies of the data for disaster recovery. 

The primary prerequisite was the seamless integration into the existing workflow without interfering directly with their main broadcast processes.

Solutions
In close cooperation with Square Box Systems, DAX Archiving Solutions provided a complete Broadcast Archive Solution which archives all existing data and prepares the system for further growth during the next race.

35TB of deep archive storage is provided by means of the network-attached SmartDAX Blu-ray Archive which was added to the network. This system consists of a 700 slot jukebox library equipped with the latest
Blu-ray optical storage technology.

DAX File & Folder Archive Software supplies a special plug-in for the CatDV media asset database and clip logging tool.  This enhancement facilitates a seamless connection between the central storage and the deep archive. As CatDV drives the workflow, archiving is now embedded in the broadcast workflow.

During the initial migration period all existing catalogued data was archived, freeing up central storage resources for re-use. Archiving is now fully automated by means of watch folder technology providing archiving as a background service, operating behind the scenes. Duplicate discs created in the SmartDAX Blu-ray Archive provide off-site disaster recovery capability. 

Editors and producers simply search through all available material by means of a unified interface provided by the CatDV library management software.Restore from deep archive simply done by means of a mouse right-click, giving a self-explanatory pop-up screen. The archive pop-up screen also provides relevant status information of individual archived files.  

As the lo-res proxies are fully editable, editors can work with the lo-res footage while the hi-res originals are being restored from the deep archive.This enables more efficient editing and eliminates waiting times at the same time.

In summary, the complete solution provides:

1. Automatic archiving of all footage, including media to be stored at a remote off-site location for disaster
    recovery.

2. Fully embedded archiving and retrieval in the broadcast workflow, avoiding waiting times and the need for
    manual intervention for re-use of old material.

3. Increased (cost-) efficiency in the use of the central video storage.  

See for more information:

• DAX Broadcast Archive Solution   
• SmartDAX Blu-ray Archive   
• DAX File and Folder Archive Software
• www.volvooceanrace.org