Māori Television Migrates News Production with Grass Valley

The end-to-end file-based system will be installed and fully operational by the middle of May 2012 catering for both News and Programme Production requirements.

The new solution includes the installation of the country's first Grass Valley STRATUS™ media workflow application framework, a series of K2 Summit™ production clients and multiple seats of EDIUS® multiformat nonlinear editors – all connected to a K2 SAN (storage area network). The station also uses two K2 Dyno™ Replay Systems, which will also be integrated into the advanced news production environment.

“We were faced with an older system that was starting to show its age with regard to today’s available technologies, so upgrading to the new Grass Valley production platform made a lot of sense," said Barry Russ, General Manager of Operations at Māori Television. “The Grass Valley STRATUS system gives us the freedom to choose what we want to connect and control, and how content is handled. No other equipment supplier was able to provide us with such a comprehensive solution that brings together all of our departments on the same platform.”

The modular design of the STRATUS architecture allows Grass Valley to easily and regularly add new software components to preserve customers' investment and help them leverage and upgrade to the most advanced content creation tools quickly and easily. The K2 Summit production clients and K2 SAN form the infrastructure for collaborative editing, as well as the ingest of audio and video clips, and playout of finished programs.

“As broadcasters begin to upgrade their existing news production infrastructure to get the most value and efficiency, software-based, IT-centric platforms like the new STRATUS will be a key component to their success,” said Jeff Rosica, Executive Vice President of Grass Valley. “Māori Television was looking to implement a platform that they could grow with and one that would still be relevant in the future. The end-to-end solution we've designed and are now installing meets all of the station's requirements and adds new functionality they didn't have before as well.”

As a long-time Grass Valley customer, Māori Television has used Grass Valley's Aurora™ NewsEdit and Profile® systems in the past and, more recently, three Grass Valley K2 media servers for playout and a pair of K2 Dyno Replay Systems, which were used as standalones extensively for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, held in New Zealand. It is the largest sporting event ever held in the country to date.

About Grass Valley
With a rich history serving the broadcast and professional video industries, the Grass Valley name is synonymous with innovation, leadership, and performance. With a full range of products and services supporting many of the world's most high-profile live events, Grass Valley offers the most comprehensive portfolio of software, services and IT infrastructure. Customers deploying Grass Valley solutions include most of the world's leading broadcast and teleproduction IT facilities, independent video professionals, as well as emerging content creators and distributors providers of broadband, telecommunications, and transmission services. When you’re watching news, sports, or entertainment programming, whether on a TV, the web, or a mobile phone, you’re watching Grass Valley at work in the connected world.