16 Apr 2007
Associated Press takes control of its archive with Neptune automation from Pebble Beach Systems
Las Vegas, 16 April 2007 -- Pebble Beach Systems (Booth # SU15509) today announces that it has signed a deal with The Associated Press (AP) that will see its flagship Neptune automation system deployed at the heart of a new digital news archive.
AP is undertaking the digitisation of its news archive as well as overhauling the asset management of its media library division, AP Television News Archive. The Television News Archive business has an archive library of approximately 500,000 records in its metadata database and sells video footage from its archive to a range of customers, predominately within the broadcast environment.
The archive currently resides on video tape with the cassettes stored on shelving within the department. The tape format varies from Umatic through to Beta SP, Digital Beta and DVCAM. Some of the Archive is on 16mm film. The production of screeners and final broadcast quality tapes is currently a manual process. The tapes are located in the Archive and then dubbed onto new tapes for dispatch to customers. The metadata associated with each story is extracted from ENPS and manually edited before being processed and sent to the current website, which at present has text only search facilities.
Pebble Beach Systems automation will provide the core device control and direct data tape library management for a new automated archive workflow with content stored in a digital file format. Online users will be able to search for and review low resolution proxy copies via the Internet and select which material they wish to purchase. Current news from the output of the AP Newsroom will be directly ingested to the system while legacy material will be played on VTRs and digitised on entry to the system. The metadata for each story will be derived from a number of sources including ENPS and the AP's eVA system.
The project has some very specific requirements including the need to interface with other AP business systems so that efficiency can be improved and operator involvement minimized.
"The digitisation of the AP video archive is a very important step for us. Providing easy access to our unique collection will be of huge benefit to our customers and help us capitalise on the value of our extensive footage archive. Pebble Beach Systems' Neptune automation system is an essential part of this important development" commented Alwyn Lindsey, Head of AP Archive.
Pebble Beach Systems' Neptune automation will control VTR's for ingesting content into an Omneon Spectrum server. An Anchor Media Management solution from Pebble Beach Systems will then provide control of a Quantum IS2000 data tape library system equipped with DLTS4 drives and manage the flow of media between the server and archive. Interfacing to AP's existing eVA system will be achieved by an enhanced Neptune API.
"This contract with The Associated Press is a major step for Pebble Beach Systems and demonstrates how our reputation has spread around the globe. The planned deployment of Neptune by AP shows that our product has the flexibility through its API to integrate to customers' other business systems and is backed up by strong service and support," commented Tom Gittins, Director of Sales, Pebble Beach Systems.
