Telestream’s Vantage Speeds Up Transcode, Ingest for Warner Bros International TV Production Belgium
Story Highlights
Warner Bros International Television Production Belgium has completed implementation of a major Telestream Vantage transcode server, file-based content ingest platform and intelligent workflow automation system. Working with Belgian Systems Integrator, VP Media Solutions, Warner Bros has created a file-based workflow at its Zaventem-based production facility where all ingest, transcoding, archiving, media asset management (MAM) and storage are supported.
Designed by Warner Bros engineers, who worked closely with VP Media Solutions’ broadcast technology specialists, the file-based workflows integrates Telestream Vantage alongside production and MAM systems from Avid and CatDV and an Archive solution from Oracle/Archiware.
The workflow was commissioned around the turn of the year. Within weeks, it was tested to the limit, supporting Warner Bros’ Thailand-based TV production – Temptation Island. Over a four-day period, the Vantage system was used to ingest all the rushes of the latest series of Temptation Island – 30 TB of data on at least 750 XDCAM HD discs – to the Avid Isis storage and the CatDV MAM. All assets were re-wrapped from OP1a to OP-Atom during transfer to the correct Avid workspace. At the same time all files were transcoded to H.264 files and ingested in the CatDV MAM system for further browsing and logging. Loggers and directors could access all footage on-premise and also securely in the cloud.
“We were facing short production timescales on this project, so the loggers, directors and editors needed to start immediately and as coordinated as possible,” says Jens Clinckspoor, Workflow Designer at Warner Bros Belgium. “I have written a lot of workflows – both for content ingest and output – and I was very impressed by the speed, elegance and versatility of the Vantage platform, which saved us a lot of time in production.”
VP Media Solutions’ engineers are extensively trained on Vantage, as a result they can use this advanced toolkit to co-create all kinds of workflows to suit a customer’s specific production requirements. The ability to integrate the Telestream, Avid, CatDV and Archive systems so seamlessly is critical to the efficient operation of the entire production facility at Zaventem.
“VP Media Solutions is our solutions partner for both Telestream and CatDV”, says Talle Leyssens, CTO at Warner Bros Belgium. “They really understand our needs and have the right people available to co-build our workflows.”