MediaCacher

MediaCacher

As video server capacity and reliability increase, more and more broadcast facilities are playing nearly everything from their digital server rather than from tape. While Sundance Digital's Titan™, FastBreak NXT ™ Prep and Intelli-Sat™ are used to encode media to the server from tape and satellite, transferring large quantities of tape-based content from shelf to server is both time consuming and labor intensive.

MediaCacher interfaces with Titan or FastBreak NXT Automation to efficiently and automatically cache content from tape to server. The program takes control of any number of available tape transports and server encoder ports that are under SIDON™ management to frame-accurately digitize content. MediaCacher can even use popular cart machines, such the Sony FlexiCart as a machine source.  This can greatly reduce the workload of transferring long-form material into the server, plus it permits the process to run virtually unattended.

Straightforward Process

MediaCacher requires only that tapes be pre-segmented (i.e., prepared as if for direct play-to-air). Once a tape's content information is stored in the Sundance media database, it can either be aired directly from the tape or cached into the server. The MediaCacher screen presents information from the tape library in one window, allowing the operator to simply drag the desired elements over to the cache window. As tape machines and server encoder ports become available, MediaCacher automatically cues the VTR and frame-accurately transfers material to the server.

Titan and FastBreak NXT Prep interface directly with MediaCacher and will request the tape elements to be cached to the server as they appear in the traffic log. This can significantly ease the workload of facilities with a large tape library. Prep and MediaCacher will interact in the background to cache material on an as-needed basis.

Eliminate On-Air Tape Problems

By combining MediaCacher with Intelli-Sat, SAM and the new content delivery technologies, such as Pathfire™, DG™ Systems, MediaDVX, Vyvx, and others, broadcast facilities can operate almost entirely from digital storage. Not only will tape transport errors no longer affect the on-air operation, but the cost of maintaining aging tape decks will also decrease dramatically. The result for the facility is a much cleaner on-air look and an overall reduction in operator workload.