NAB Event News
NBC Olympics taps Omneon ProCast CDN for Beijing Games
By
Apr 12, 2008 - 11:20:04 PM

By Carolyn Braff

To kick off NAB 2008, Omneon announced that NBC has chosen multiple Omneon elements to anchor the network’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing, China. In addition to the company’s already established MediaDeck media servers and MediaGrid active storage systems (v. 2.1 is new for NAB), Omneon has unrolled ProCast CDN, a transport engine that will create an efficient around-the-world workflow just in time for the Games.

The ProCast CDN content distribution system allows for efficient file transfers over thousands of miles, eliminating the bottleneck formerly caused by FTP transfer methods.

“Whereas moving video over long distances on FTP can take hours, ProCast will get that down to minutes,” explains Geoff Stedman, vice president of marketing for Omneon.

With NBC planning more than 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage over multiple platforms, including the Highlights Factory that will push content via broadband, VOD, wireless, mobile and electronic sell-thru, saving network bandwidth and improving workflow efficiency are critical. ProCast is the most efficient a protocol currently available.

ProCast also offers manageability features like schedule transfers and prioritization changes that allow for additional levels of customization.

“It can intelligently dial up and down bandwidth utilization based on the priorities you set,” Stedman explains, so that a routine transfer can be bumped to expedite the transfer of video covering breaking news. The technology has already been tested in speeds up to 6 gbp/s and it is multi-site solution scalable.

“I think it’s a very unique use of proxy technology and editing technology,” Stedman says. “We’re excited to see how it plays out over the course of this summer.”

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary at NAB, Omneon also announced a new partner in Interra Systems. Interra’s Baton application does technical analysis of media flows and is now integrated into the MediaGrid storage system as a file-based quality assurance application.

Omneon is also debuting the Media Services Framework at NAB, a consolidated web service interface designed to simplify and speed integration for file-based workflows.