MTV Selects Front Porch Digital for Archive Needs

MTV Networks, a unit of
Viacom, has implemented Front Porch Digital’s DIVArchive and DIVAnet
for a broadcast content archive management system between its network
operations center in Long Island, NY, and its backup facility in
Nashville, TN.

“DIVAnet leverages the core archiving and storage extension
functionality of DIVArchive by enabling the intelligent linking of
archives between physical facilities,” says Dave Polyard, Front Porch
Digital senior vice president of sales for North America. “DIVAnet
combined with DIVArchive makes it possible for small broadcasters or
broadcasters as large as MTV Networks to implement strategies ranging
from fully distributed business continuance functionality to content
interchange and repurposing.”

“It won’t surprise anyone to learn that we at MTV Networks have an
enormous archive of programming content — some of it invaluable,” explains
Mike Bivona, MTV Networks vice president of engineering for content
creation and distribution technologies. ” Due to the magnitude and the constant need to repurpose
content, our archive solution must efficiently manage assets in
multiple locations while also providing us with flexible content
management policies to meet changing programming requirements.”

Based on a combination of integrated software and hardware components,
Front Porch Digital DIVArchive is a uniquely flexible content storage
management system that simplifies the process of preserving,
managing, and accessing content for operations of all sizes.

At MTV
Networks, DIVAnet links, via WAN, independent DIVArchive systems
located in New York and Tennessee. For a given clip, DIVAnet transfers
not only the standard MPEG wrapper and essence file, but also
associated metadata to facilitate later identification and placement.
In addition, it surmounts the challenges of long-distance file
transfers without the need for human intervention. For example, DIVAnet
can identify a network problem that might interfere with content
transfers and direct the content to a buffer until the problem has been
resolved.