Harmonic Storage System Provides The London Studios With Missing Link in Tapeless Workflow 

By providing secure, scalable media storage and robust bandwidth capacity, the Omneon MediaGrid eliminates The London Studios' reliance on tape and enables a much more efficient workflow between two key business areas.

"We have found that our clients are very keen to take advantage of the tapeless workflow supported by the Omneon MediaGrid," said Chris Cook, director of engineering support at The London Studios. "In addition to being a faster and more elegant workflow, it's also a cost- and time-saving model. We've cut out the expense of buying HD tape and running tape decks, replacing them with file-based storage that we can expand easily without disrupting ongoing operations. We'd been proposing this type of model for some time, and Harmonic provided the missing link."

Wholly owned by ITV, The London Studios provides studio and post-production facilities for ITV and third parties. The company's installation of the Omneon MediaGrid storage system brings the entire production and editing workflow into the tapeless domain. Having been qualified with both EVS and Avid, the Omneon MediaGrid storage system fits neatly with The London Studios existing systems.

HD media recorded onto EVS systems in studios now is transferred to the Omneon MediaGrid, which provides 400 hours of HD storage. Editors working in an Avid environment can access the low-resolution version of media for offline editing and the high-resolution version for online editing. Once material has been edited, the finished project can be pushed back to the Omneon MediaGrid system for storage.

"The proven interoperability and stability of the Omneon MediaGrid system, as well as its scalability both in terms of capacity and bandwidth, are critical to a company such as The London Studios," said Geoff Stedman, senior vice president for corporate marketing at Harmonic. "The content stored on the Omneon MediaGrid system is extremely valuable, and continuous and fast access to this media ensures that the company and its clients can realize a streamlined, highly efficient end-to-end workflow."

The London Studios took its Harmonic storage system online earlier this year and, as a result of quick uptake by clients, already is expanding the system to accommodate another 300 hours of HD content. The storage system is currently fed by two of The London Studios' larger studios, and the company plans to continue expanding the Omneon MediaGrid system as it upgrades and connects additional studios.