Munich, 28. January 2011
Bavarian Broadcasting installs Digitization Factory
Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) is the public broadcasting company of the German Federal State of Bavaria, with its headquarters located in Munich. After more than ten years of analogue tape digitization according to the strict guideline of aurally validating all sound material in a one-to-one transfer, the decision was made to try out a factory approach in order to dramatically speed up the digitization throughput. Following a three-month test phase, Bavarian Broadcasting decided to install the Quadriga system, employing a remote control for eight Studer A816 tape machines. For special collections the BR will also continue to do one-to-one transfer.
Calibration-Inspector will be utilized to secure and document the error-free playback condition of the Studer tape machines. Quadriga will be employed to digitize the audio tapes. The module automatically flags critical issues for aural supervision. Post processing is handled in Dobbin by virtual machines which perform flexible, metadata-driven workflows in order to optimize sound levels and automatically flag critical issues for aural supervision.
The CubeWorkflow engine ensures that the team members have instant access to all information needed. The whole installation will be fully integrated in the BR IT infrastructure with CubeWorkflow providing all the necessary customization interfaces for this integration.
For aural inspection a supervisor can open the preservation audio files at a Sequoia workstation without having to wait for the calculation of the waveform level file. Quality metadata is also directly accessible to the supervisor, including sample-accurate time codes as Sequoia marker files.
Employing the 'Medienbroker', a meta-search system in use at the BR, journalists can request audio files for on-demand digitization. The 'Medienbroker' then automatically informs the journalist about the current status of their digitization requests. In 2010, up to 10,000 audio files were requested monthly via the 'Medienbroker' for use in broadcast and production.
The BR digitization factory project is now in the implementation phase. Further details regarding the progress of this project will follow after more practical experience in the everyday digitization process has been gathered.