THE SITUATION
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is Australia’s multicultural and multilingual broadcaster. As one of five free-to-air networks in the country, its role is unique: to tell engaging stories that inspire all Australians to explore, respect and celebrate our diverse world. SBS creates and curates a wide range of video content; from nightly news and current affairs to cutting-edge documentaries, local dramas and international sporting events like the 2018 FIFA World CupTM. The network currently reaches an average audience of 13 million people on television and almost 7 million unique browsers online every month.
“Production teams had to grapple with a manual file management system, so time was lost organizing and finding files, while unnecessary file duplication was a common, but frustrating occurrence. Production storage was never large enough.” says Darren Farnham, Head of Technology Operations & Services at SBS
THE CHALLENGES
SBS recently upgraded production infrastructure to DeLL/EMC® Isilon® for storage and Dalet as the broadcast MAM. What they also needed, though, was an additional layer of project-based asset management to improve editing project workflows and enable asset and project sharing in creative teams. While the flexibility of Adobe® Premiere® Pro CC is beneficial for many companies, for a larger business like SBS that openness can create difficulties, particularly in regards to project structures and storage organization. As a result, creative teams can be burdened with storage management tasks.
THE SOLUTION
That’s where we came in. Strawberry was implemented in SBS’s Sydney production center across several divisions, including News and Current Affairs and Marketing. Strawberry organizes the Isilon storage on a project basis and controls access to those projects. Immediately editors could link content between projects - saving time and storage space. It integrates seamlessly with Adobe® Creative Cloud® applications used by SBS, the project-based metadata is more useful for creative users, and it brings automation and efficiency to video post-production workflows. Ultimately, it gives creators more time to create.
THE BENEFITS
Of course, that’s easy for us to say. So, here’s Darren:
“With Strawberry, our users can find content faster. Users aren’t nervous about losing files anymore so file duplication has been massively reduced and archiving is simpler. Suddenly, we have enough production storage to produce content.”
ABOUT SBS
SBS provides multiple language programs available through TV, radio and online ensuring that all Australians, regardless of geography, age, cultural background or language skills, have access to high quality, independent, culturally-relevant Australian media. Currently, SBS reaches an average audience of 13.1 million people per month on television, and on average serves almost 7 million unique browsers each month online, including an average of 1.3 million streams each month for radio.
SBS operates six free-to-air TV channels (SBS, SBS HD, SBS VICELAND, SBS VICELAND HD, Food Network and NITV), eight radio stations (SBS Radio 1, 2 and 3, SBS Radio 4, SBS Arabic 24 including PopAraby, SBS PopDesi, SBS Chill and SBS PopAsia) and World Movies, a subscription TV channel. SBS Online provides audio streaming of all of our language programs and is home to SBS On Demand video streaming service. In Australia, SBS is one of five main free-to-air networks.
ABOUT PROJECTIVE (formerly known as FlavourSys)
Projective Technology GmbH is dedicated to revolutionizing how content production happens. By focusing on the creative user and providing innovative technical solutions to production storage problems, Projective offers a fundamentally different approach to production storage and editing projects. Strawberry, Projective’s flagship Production Asset Management application, was created by editors for editors, and is a recipient of the IBC Broadcast Engineering Award. Strawberry is used by broadcasters, production houses, ad agencies, film schools, and sports clubs worldwide.