Slovak Radio Implements NOA mediARC™ to Secure Audio Archive, Support Production Efficiency

"Our choice of the NOA mediARC solution was a logical one because the company's outstanding reputation has made it the leader in quality-controlled digital archiving," said Robert Oravec, technical director at SKR. "Furthermore, we required a system with a comprehensive and flexible metadata structure for describing audio assets. The mediARC system, which incorporates highly functional tools including an easy-to-use feature for consolidating metadata entries, met our exacting standards. In my opinion, mediARC has become the tool of choice for enabling an enterprise to make the most of its archive."

NOA's mediARC automates management of audio content within a workflow. Once content has been ingested by the NOA IngestLine Record system, mediARC automatically encodes both high-quality 96-kHz 24-bit .wav and browsable .mp3 copies of each file, including Waveform and trackmarkers. When a file is requested, mediARC institutes the transfer from the archive to the various production systems, performing necessary transcoding in the process. The system is transparent so that users can see at a glance what has been exported.

SKR formerly relied on an outmoded database system for storage and manual retrieval of tracks stored on a variety of carriers, so mediARC has provided dramatic improvements in efficiency, access, and security. SKR also values mediARC because it unifies and identifies all stored content, regardless of the original carrier, and because it can grow to keep up with storage needs. Future plans include near-term integration of mediARC with SKR's existing automation systems.

SKR's NOA installation includes two NOA IngestLine Record Stations, each with three parallel ingest streams, for digital transcription; an IngestLine CD Lector single-drive mass CD ripping system; and mediARC itself, comprising an Oracle database with mediARC scheme, file manager, processor host, 100-client distributed Web interface, and 20-client distributed mediARC administrative interface.

"Today's digital technology gives us the unprecedented ability to ensure that future generations have access to our cultural heritage," said Jean-Christophe Kummer, NOA managing partner. "At the same time, well-managed digital storage of media makes it much more readily available today, enabling its use and re-use for a wide variety of creative pursuits. The NOA mediARC system in place at SKR uses the best practices of the archiving world to meet the intensive demands of their production environment today, and to secure access to the record tomorrow."

About Slovenský rozhlas

Slovak Radio is Slovakia's national public-service radio broadcaster. The publicly funded company has its headquarters in Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic, housed in a building shaped like an inverted pyramid. Regular daily broadcasting from Bratislava, then in Czechoslovakia, began on Oct. 2, 1926. Slovenský rozhlas manages the Slovak Radio Children's Choir, founded in 1953, and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOSR), founded in 1929 as the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra.

About NOA Audio Solutions

NOA Audio Solutions is the leading global provider of flexible turnkey solutions for quality-controlled digitizing, management, and archiving of audio and other media content. Scalable to suit collections of all sizes, NOA's three product families, Ingest Line, mediARC, and JobDatabase, not only help ensure long-term preservation of media, but also support enterprise-wide collaboration, efficiency, and productivity by enabling fast and accurate identification and retrieval of clips from the full range of an enterprise's archive. NOA's easy-to-use proprietary technologies are today installed in some 20 high-profile enterprises worldwide, including Sveriges Radio Förvaltnings (SRF), Yleisradio Finland (YLE), Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV), Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico, and Voice of Vietnam. With headquarters in Vienna, Austria, NOA is committed to the ongoing development of innovative technologies to ensure the maintenance of invaluable cultural heritage for future generations.