Living with Video Servers in a Digital Broadcast Facility

The Disney Channel has been playing to air from video servers since November 1^st, 1996. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all programming and promotional materials play to air from a pair of redundant video servers under the control of an automation system. On April 18^th, 1998, Disney Channel launched a new network, Toon Disney, which also plays to air directly from a video server. — Living with video servers is a coming reality for all broadcasters. Whether servers are used only in isolated areas or facility-wide, broadcast engineers will need to understand how to use these new tools effectively and learn their particular failure modes. Experience with computer operating systems and modern computer networking techniques is not only helpful, it is essential. — The Disney/ABC Cable Group's Network Operation Center (NOC) in Burbank, California was built in the Summer of 1996. The NOC went into operation in November 1996, with the origination of the Disney Channel from a new all-digital facility with ITU-R 601 digital component video and four channels of AES/EBU digital audio. The tape format is Sony's Digital Betacam and the robotics are the Sony Library Management System (LMS). The automation system is from Louth and the video servers are the Philips DVS Media Pool and the ASC Audio Video Corporation VR300. Routing systems are from Philips and NVision, under the control of the Philips Jupiter control system. — Disney utilizes a ‘full time caching’ concept for playback of Disney Channel and Toon Disney. The automation system is loaded with a playlist created by a separate traffic system. The automation examines the playlist and creates a caching list. The caching list includes all video elements needed for playback within the next 3–5 hours, programs and promotional material inclusive. The automation cues material on tape in the LMS and then records the item into the video server. Once the item is stored in the video server, the automation can play back the item at the correct time. The automation instructs the video server to play the items back-to-back in the correct order to produce a constant program feed that is fed to a master control switcher. The automation monitors the server storage and deletes items or caches new ones as needed. — This type of caching system allows for simple expansion to multiple time zone or regional feeds. Last minute changes to the playlist are simplified. VTR wear is reduced since multiple playbacks of high repetition items come from the video server rather than tape machines. Overall, the reliability of an automated server based playback system is higher than the reliability of an automated tape based system. — Many of the rules have changed in moving from the analog VTR world to the digital server world. The simultaneous introduction of a digital facility, automated network playback system, and video servers taught the Disney engineering staff many lesso In this paper, we intend to relate our experiences to help others plan and understand the coming change to server based facilities.

Published

1998-10

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M00290

ISBN

978-1-61482-929-4