RTE Moves to All-Digital Workflow with Avid Interplay

Avid Technology,
Inc. announced that

Ireland’s
public service broadcaster, Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE), is replacing its tape-based production infrastructure
with an end-to-end Avid digital workflow. The Dublin-based broadcaster, which
operates two television channels; RTE One and RTE Two, as well as four radio
stations, is building its new production workflow around the Avid Interplay nonlinear
workflow engine, tied to the Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage system.

RTE will
employ the new digital workflow to produce and publish a wide variety of
content including news, promotional spots, sports, and long-form programming to
multiple distribution platforms. Given the breadth of the production needs at
RTE, the company was seeking to deploy a solution capable of streamlining the
management of a wide range of media assets, across a complex set of concurrent
workflows. In addition, RTE sought to make it easier for production teams to
work collaboratively with all media assets on a shared network. The digital upgrade,
which RTE expects to complete in fall 2007, will deliver significant time and
cost savings, allowing the broadcaster to produce a greater number of high
quality programs.

“We
wanted more than to simply transition from a tape-based to a digital production
workflow, so we chose the Avid Interplay system because we hoped that it would help
transform our way of doing things in television,” said John Hunt, director
of operations at RTE Television. “Our workflows are complex and need the
powerful and agile technology that Avid Interplay promises. The aim is to
improve our overall productivity in comparison to the tape-based operation so
we can produce more efficient and even better programming. We look forward to
continuing to work with Avid to explore the opportunities that Interplay
promises to open up across the production spectrum.”

In
addition to Avid Interplay, the multi-million dollar RTE purchase includes an
Avid Unity ISIS system with 80TB of storage and 26 Avid AirSpeed systems for
ingest and playout. A large number of Avid desktop systems are also part of the
deal, including 12 Avid NewsCutter Adrenaline editing systems and eight Avid
NewsCutter XP systems with Avid Mojo

SDI
hardware.

Productivity
benefits for RTE will include the ability for multiple departments to have
instant and simultaneous access to media assets (e.g., a producer will be able
to view footage from a sports feed while it is concurrently being logged and
indexed). There is a simplified editing schedule, allowing suites that were
once tied to either long or short format projects to be used for any genre
programming. There is greater agility in dealing with a wide range of distribution formats, including those used for mobile devices and broadband
video. They have reduced infrastructure costs, by consolidating its Avid Unity ISIS,
Avid Interplay and AirSpeed systems in a single, centralized location; and easy
integration of new camera formats required for tapeless acquisition.

Paul
Glasgow, general manager, Avid UK & EMEA, said, “RTE’s participation
in the beta testing of the Avid Interplay system was critical, as it allowed
them to understand the possible benefits in each part of their workflow. The
real benefits, however, will be achieved as RTE leverages technology to transform its business model with more
efficient operations. Avid’s Professional Services Group worked closely with
RTE to model and test the new workflows, which will deliver tangible improvements
across the whole production function.”

Over the past year, the Avid Professional
Services group conducted a detailed evaluation of the RTE facility and
operations, and designed a new infrastructure to better meet current and future
needs. RTE and Avid worked closely to define job roles and to develop a
strategy for transitioning the technology as well as bringing the staff up to
speed with the workflow changes. All of the new systems are being installed in
close cooperation with Avid’s Dublin-based partner, Tyrell CCT.