BSkyB building new Distribution Centre

By Kevin Hilton
SVG European correspondent
BSkyB is in the process of building a new networked
media distribution centre (NMDC) at its broadcasting headquarters in
west London. This will accommodate all the satellite broadcaster’s
channels, including Sky Sports, handling ingest and delivery of
material, with facilities to search, view, process, manage and publish
programmes and packages to any media platform and for all syndication
companies working for Sky.

Central to the running of the centralised facility will be DayPort’s
Carbon Content Management system, which will run all the main
functions, handle User Generated Content and allow Sky teams on
location to load in video material and prepare it for transmission on
each or any of the broadcaster’s channels.

A Carbon Content Management system is used at the moment for Sky
News Active and the NMDC installation will allow material, with
metadata, to be loaded onto the main production systems, including Avid
non-linear editing workstations, Leitch Nexio servers and tape.

Sky Sports will be the main user of the system, although all Sky’s
other channels will have access to the NMDC’s services. Andy Ioannou,
senior vice president of sales and marketing at DayPort commented, that
the company had been working with Sky for several months to understand
and design the NMDC to cater for current and future operational needs.

Although building work has begun on the NMDC a BSkyB spokesman would
not give any timescale for the work, admitting that there had been a
“couple of glitches” in the process, which were unconnected with the
management system. He added that the centre was part of the
broadcaster’s general plan to grow its facilities at the west London
site.