Storage Kings

HD content and multi-platform distribution services are driving the need for next generation IT-based broadcast storage systems.

The launch of digital television services in the 1990s proved a watershed moment for the broadcast storage technology sector. No longer would tape-based systems alone prove sufficient for storing the huge amounts of content produced to power new multi-platform distribution services. Instead, broadcasters en masse embraced next-generation asset management systems capable of supporting production and playout requirements and ultimately, archiving content post-broadcast.

Much of the core technology found in these systems was borrowed from the IT sector, leading to what was officially dubbed ‘the digital convergence’ of the broadcast and IT industries. Today, this trend continues, with IT innovations looming large in the development of next-generation broadcast storage applications. Ed Casaccia, Senior Director of Marketing at US broadcast storage specialist Grass Valley, says the relationship between the broadcast and IT worlds has never been more important. “We need to track what the IT world is doing – it has a vastly superior R&D budget – and use what is appropriate and powerful,” he says. “Successful multi-platform content delivery can only be achieved through enterprise level asset management, and enterprise level asset management can only exist through the interoperability of multiple pools of storage. So network storage is a key enabler - it does not work without it,” continues Casaccia.

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Casaccia believes the most efficient route to innovation in the broadcast storage sector is utilising saying “true IT networking architectures, overlaid with the service levels that broadcast applications demand”. Casaccia continues, “That makes the low-level development of storage interoperability a relatively trivial issue. It simply becomes a matter of sourcing the right SDKs from the storage vendors.” He adds, “The specific example of NAS is interesting. Current architectures cannot deliver large scale real-time access from NAS devices: the sustained data rates do not support it. But it can provide a powerful nearline storage sub-system.”

Broadcast technology vendor SGL is spearheading development in the network storage space. The company’s Product Manager, Howard Twine, says around 80 percent of all archive solutions it supplies to broadcast clients have “some form of NAS as part of the archive”, while another “10 to 15 percent” utilise storage area network (SAN) technologies.

“The type and scale of NAS or SAN storage is almost exclusively workflow dependent,” he says, confirming Casaccia’s sentiments. “Archiving finished long-form content can be managed efficiently direct to data tape. However, in order to backup projects and works in progress – especially graphics-based content – which consist of many smaller files, a combination of disk and tape provides a significant improvement to the overall archive workflow.”

Greg Carter, Product Manager, Storage Solutions for Harris Broadcast Communications, says network storage-based systems are fundamental “to providing shared access to content throughout the acquisition, production and transmission workflow”. Carter adds, “Broadcasters are increasingly delivering file-based content rather than baseband video streams. Asset management and workflow applications have become essential components in this environment.”