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NBC Studios
NBC hits American Dreams (above) and Las Vegas (below) are two of the series taking advantage of the new dailies network.
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NBC Studios has created a dailies network, in digital format, based on Windows Media 9 Series
NBC Studios' new dailies network eliminates the need for tape
As it completes its first season with Windows Media® 9 Series to deliver dailies in digital format for its slate of one hour, primetime dramas, NBC Studios has been able to eliminate videotape dailies almost entirely.
As a content creator, NBC Studios had been interested in adopting a new business model to reduce the amount of tape stock used and the cycle time required to deliver tapes to NBC Studios and NBC Entertainment executives and production personnel in various locations. "With dailies in digital format, people avoid making tapes. They allow me to work at my computer and watch dailies. From a convenience perspective the dailies are always there and available," says Jerry DiCanio, senior vice president of NBC Studios.
"We had tried MPEG1 and MPEG2 dailies in digital format, but the compression did not yield the high quality and small file size desired," says John Bollen, director of infrastructure at NBC Burbank. "Large files had higher bandwidth requirements, longer transmission times and increased costs. So it was almost counterproductive to use these technologies."
But at NAB 2003, the Windows Media 9 Series player and encoder "really jumped out" to Bollen as an alternative format for dailies. A blind test found NBC executives ranking a standard definition Windows Media 9 Series file a close second to a DVD. "The quality was phenomenal," DiCanio reports. "The file was near-DVD in quality and much better than what they were currently receiving on videotape," adds Bollen.
With a green light from NBC Studios, NBC IT developed a dailies application and Microsoft assisted with their Windows Media 9 technology which was tested on a drama which filmed last summer, a time when shows are typically on hiatus. The dailies in digital format met with a very receptive response, and these dailies were planned for other dramatic series when they started shooting for the new fall season.
Adoption of Windows Media 9 Series for dailies in digital format was quick and smooth. "NBC already had a robust IT infrastructure we could leverage," notes Bollen.
"As a GE company, we follow our corporate best practices so our IT systems are highly available and redundant. We already had standard desktop computers that were powerful enough to receive dailies in digital format; we had robust network, server and storage infrastructures and our CTO upgraded our Internet bandwidth to accommodate dailies in digital format."
Since all of NBC Studios' dramatic series are shot on film, Windows Media 9 Series encoding and delivery is done onsite at the telecine facilities which create master content and dailies. "Our equipment is installed at the facilities so the post house doesn't have to make any capital investment in the process," says Bollen.
Dailies in digital format have proved "even easier to use than a VCR" for non-technical people, says Bollen. "I've been out of the office for weeks, and I find my dailies immediately on my PC," DiCanio explains. "They are on demand and always there. There are no more tapes sitting on my floor, no production assistants delivering tapes and I'm not paying anyone to make copies."
"Your dailies are only a click away rather than waiting for tape, cuing tape in your VCR and using your fast-forward button," Bollen says. "If you want to comment or share information about a scene or a take, the system allows the user to forward an e-mail to the exact point and time code. It saves hours, and it's simple."
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