Ensuring reliable ingest and archival process among different locations

Our customer is responsible for delivering the 2014 Winter Games to billions of viewers around the world. Its main responsibility consists in developing a reliable approach across the Winter Games workflow processes, while optimizing resources to continually improve the efficiency of the overall operation among the Right Holders Broadcasters (RHBs). MOG’s contribution to improve this customer efficiency was already proved during the London Summer Games 2012, when mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 was selected to take part of their operational workflow by ensuring the preparation of convenient material for the footage archiving.

The Challenge

In such a major event like the Winter Games, our customer needs to ensure that the video and audio signals are correctly controlled, processed and distributed without any kind of failure or delay. With a huge amount of hours to cover, there is the need to choose a reliable and solid technology, able to increase performance and speed up ingest, transcode and delivery processes. Planning to have several distribution channels for the RHBs, with different daily schedules and different feeds to distribute according to the competition agenda there is no space for failures or delays. Our customer needs to deliver high resolution versions of the digitized material to the Right Holder Broadcasters center. Additionally, there is also the need to archive all media for future re-purpose back at the customer facilities at Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Solution

Ensuring reliable ingest and archival process among different locations

MOG is responsible for ensuring the archival process of the material distributed to RHBs. This includes transcoding the original AVC-Intra 100Mbps MXF OP1a files into MPEG LGOP @ 70 Mbps MXF OP1a onsite (Sochi, Russia) and then delivering both the media files and BDF data to Lausanne (Switzerland) over dedicated fiber lines. The solution implemented is composed of 3 different sections:

• Local Section – deployed at Sochi, is responsible for transcoding AVC-Intra 100Mbps MXF OP1a files into MPEG LGOP @ 70 Mbps MXF OP1a and store them in a temporary central storage (NAS) until they are sent to final destination;
• Remote Section – deployed at Lausanne, consists of a central storage server (NAS) responsible for accommodating all archival assets produced during the games;
• File Transfer Section – responsible for the daily intercontinental delivery of archival assets from Sochi to Lausanne.
  

mxfSPEEDRAIL role at the Winter Games There are 11 mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 connected to the SAN storage server, through several 1 Gb Ethernet connections, that ensures access to the original AVC-Intra 100Mbps MXF OP1a files while they are still being created. The connection between mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 servers and the central storage is made through two 1 Gb Ethernet connections. These connections are used to write the transcoded MPEG LGOP @ 70 Mbps MXF OP1a. The operator has access to every ingest system through a single access point, using a dedicated monitoring server. Additionally, the user is perfectly able to perfectly control the video contents sent to the production area, by using mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 clip preview, trim and merge capabilities. Each mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 is responsible for transcoding several simultaneous files (from AVC-Intra to MPEG LGOP @ 70 Mbps MXF OP1a) into the temporary storage server. The transcoded files are preserved and stored into a specific folder structure that varies every day according to our customer’s well-defined and strict naming conventions. The broadcaster is able to quickly identify its contents due to a well-organized file and folder structure that’s aware of each footage dates, time, venues and sport discipline. After the files are sent to Lausanne, they are flagged as delivered and erased from the temporary storage at Sochi. As a contingency backup plan against unexpected connection issues (imagine a network connectivity break between Sochi and Lausanne) the temporary central storage at Sochi has an internal storage capacity that can handle the parking of up to 3 days of footage, plus each mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 also has some internal storage that can be used for parking non delivered contents. In total the system can park a total of up to 10 days of footage in the event of unexpected connectivity issues and quickly resume the delivery process once connections are re-established. For transfers between Sochi and Lausanne, mxfSPEEDRAIL F1000 is perfectly interoperable with FileCatalyst software ensuring file delivery at full line speeds regardless of typical network impairments, while granting to the operator the ability to monitor transfer progress, speeds and logs. The solution is deployed in both sites in a typical point-to-point architecture ensuring file upload from Sochi to Lausanne.