MUMBAI: The Information Affairs Authority’s (IAA) Bahrain Radio & Television division (BTV) has selected Masstech, the provider of streamlined media asset management solutions, to digitise and preserve all its content for optimal workflow efficiency.
The first of a kind project for the Kingdom of Bahrain will involve building a comprehensive digital archive for 55 years of BTV’s broadcast content.
Bahrain TV is currently upgrading all six of its channels to HD and Masstech’s Topaz archive will perform the material handling to Harmonic’s Omneon playout servers under the control of Pebble Beach automation for precise HD file based workflows.
Topaz’s inline high speed transcoding (HQS) technology will enable interoperability for bridging workflows between BTV’s content creation platforms – these include Avid Interplay, Apple FCP and Adobe Premier.
IAA director of technical affairs Shaima Al Hamid said, “We chose Masstech because they have more built-in versatility to provide us with a complete solution for digital archiving, ingest, QC and metadata management. The Topaz system will enhance production giving our staff instant access to archived video footage with the ability to search and view low resolution proxies at their desktop. It is very important for us to preserve and protect our media assets as we invest in more channels and generate more content.”
Masstech’s Topaz+XT, the all-in-one HSM, CSM, HQS and media asset management (MAM) system, facilitates metadata entries in Arabic and English to improve programme planning, coordination, reduce costs, and enable more streamlined operations.
At BTV’s facility in Manama, the installation will comprise IBM servers, a DCS3700 150TB nearline cache, a Spectra multi-frame T950 LTO-5 library, Pulsar-2 QC, 15 XT-Ingest appliances and Masstech’s patented DRAC redundancy – all integrated and managed by Topaz.
Masstech VP sales and marketing Brad Redwood added, “We are thrilled to be part of Bahrain TV’s transformation – accelerating the migration from videotape to digital archiving. In our 10th anniversary as a MAM leader, we are excited to welcome BTV to Masstech’s global family of installations. For over a decade, we have been delivering MAM solutions to leading broadcasters who value our highly skilled support services and capitalize on the full benefits of streamlined asset management. Topaz’s scalable open platform with interfaces to new media and business systems will support the Kingdom’s ambitious expansion plans for years to come.”
