SBT in Brazil adopts Avid solutions

The system reduces the time between the arrival of the raw material and its issuance by integrating storage on Avid ISIS servers with new ingestion, editing and playout tools.

The editorial office of the Brazilian SBT has taken a great leap in quality with the update of the systems used to receive files produced by the ENG teams (ingestion), storage, access and prior editing of the images by journalists, as well as the post-production and final review of each report.

A complete solution powered by Avid, integrated by CIS Group, has allowed the almost total elimination of disk, card and tape traffic in the newsroom. “The solution is in line with what we already have in the entertainment editing and post-production area, which also uses Avid solutions,” highlights Alexandre Sano, technical and operations director at SBT.

According to Sano, the solution has meant greater integration and dynamism throughout the department, which until now had been working in an environment of Leitch solutions (now incorporated into Harris), using numerous XDCAM disks to transfer materials from one machine to another to review the content within the newsroom. Eventually, some materials were even broadcast directly from the records themselves. "Today these disks are only used in the capture, which is carried out with XDCAM SD 50 Mbits/s cameras. The entire system is ready for high definition, depending only on the replacement of the cameras with HD models," he assures.

In the current workflow, file transfer has been considerably simplified. When the images arrive at the broadcaster's headquarters, data ingestion immediately begins for the Avid system, which recognizes the format used by Sony. The process is carried out at 50% of real time, further accelerating the release of images to the Avid ISIS server, so they can be immediately searched and edited on one of the 19 workstations.

Accessible media

SBT has 22 teams in Sao Paulo for the production of reports, in addition to a satellite SNG unit and three units with terrestrial links. Since ingest is carried out from XDCAM disks, contributions made from mobile units, affiliated broadcasters and international correspondents are also stored directly on the ISIS server. In this core of the system is all the media that will supply the news of this broadcaster.

This configuration facilitates the re-editing and reuse of images, since the same interview or coverage of an event can be presented with different times and approaches throughout the day.

Another advantage provided by Alexandre Sano is the increase in the input capacity of data (media) into the system, instead of baseband audio and video, which reduces the need for conversion. "Previously we had a very big limitation to receive contributions via FTP. That bottleneck has also been eliminated, since now we have a much more agile structure to carry out the conversion to the standard format that we use," says Sano.

In the previous model, the reduced ingest capacity forced broadcasters to even use the editing islands for this purpose. Now, all of this is carried out from the new ingestion center, located next to the newsroom. It is divided into two rooms, one for contributions from news agencies, affiliates and DSNG/UM, and another to serve the reporting teams that arrive from the street.

“This center is prepared to receive any type of media, from disks and memory cards to images from smartphones or pen drives, with the agility that journalism demands,” Sano details.

Increase fonts safely

It should be noted, on the other hand, that the emergence of FTP exchange increased the participation of affiliates since everything arrives on time to be edited and broadcast. Something that did not always happen before the implementation of the new system.
However, although new doors have been opened for the entry of data through Internet channels, this has not meant, in Sano's opinion, compromising the security of the operation. All external communication goes through a Linux server that receives the content and does not allow any type of virus to pass into the system. It is a bridge that guarantees communication between the two sides without risks.

Writing and pre-editing

All journalists have the AP/ENPS system to prepare their reports, as well as to establish associations with the materials and with the automations for character generation, teleprompter... "The ENPS and Avid systems are completely integrated and the entire playlist of materials is coordinated by ENPS. If during a news report, the editor-in-chief decides to alter the position of a piece, the Avid system recognizes the change and carries out the necessary alterations. This function is extremely important because otherwise the entire process would be manual," he states. Healthy.

Media triggering, including GC and TP, began to be automated in 2005, but the recent upgrade added new features and greater accuracy.

For low-resolution viewing and pre-editing, the old NewsFlash Preditor software was replaced by Avid Interplay Access, in addition to incorporating stations with Avid Interplay Assist.

It should be noted that between 6 and 7 in the afternoon, 120 journalists gather in the SBT newsroom with 40 simultaneous accesses to Interplay Assist. Thanks to this, it is possible to instantly search, access the files and make a complete edit to the cut, always in low resolution. When the piece is defined, a high-resolution version is consolidated across all 16 stations using Avid NewsCutter and 3 Avid Media Composers, which feature sophisticated editing and effects capabilities.

Flow

One of the relevant advantages of the system is the time invested between the arrival of a team from the street and the availability of the files for editing and display. “With a simple command, the files are ready to go on air,” says Sano.

This change in the ingestion, editing and display processes has not posed any difficulties for professionals. The five news programs that are broadcast daily have carried out the migration in different stages, taking on average a week for all editorial staff to adapt.

The newsroom has 60TB of storage on the ISIS server and, to prevent it from running out of disk space, the Media Center team defines with the editors the files that should remain online or that should be deleted or transferred to an archive on XDCAM disks.

In addition to the storage available in the newsroom, there is another server to place materials and reports on the air. When they are finalized, the editors publish them to the Avid Air Speed, ready for broadcast.

Although the entire system is ready to work in high definition, this will not happen until the end of 2014, the necessary period for the replacement of cameras and other elements of the production and contribution chain, including microwave and affiliate links.