Think TV Dayton Expands Storage Capabilities With NVerzion TeraStore 113-T Near-Line Storage
SALT LAKE CITY — Dec. 12, 2011 — NVerzion, a leading provider of cutting-edge tools for digital broadcasting and television station automation, today announced that PBS member station Think TV Dayton/WPTD of Dayton, Ohio, has expanded its existing NVerzion automation package to include the TeraStore 113-T near-line storage archive system. Think TV Dayton now utilizes six TeraStore digital archive libraries, which provide a convenient, reliable, and cost-effective solution for an efficient and streamlined tapeless workflow with a robust 258.4 TB of available RAID capacity.
This is the fifth time Think TV Dayton has expanded its NVerzion Terastore capacity since its initial purchase of the storage archive system in 2004. The latest expansion was prompted by Think TV Dayton's merger with PBS member-station WCET of Cincinnati in 2009, following which Think TV Dayton transitioned from running 10 on-the-air digital channels to its current 13 channels, for complete 24/7 operations.
"After we merged with WCET, we added three more channels, but we simply couldn't add any additional staff members due to budgetary constraints. With our purchase of the TeraStore 113-T, however, we were able to maintain all 13 digital channels of service without the need to increase our staff," said George Hopstetter, director of technical services at Think TV Dayton. "We currently expend about 3.2 to 3.8 TB of near-line storage capacity per month for archival of HD and SD programming, as well as promotional media."
Think TV Dayton's TeraStore libraries can now hold more than 12,000 hours of HD and SD programs, as well as the station's promotional material, in a single-45 RU rack.
"The drive expansion for a near-line archive system is much more cost effective than adding online video server storage capacity," Hopstetter continued. "The TeraStore has now become our tape library."
Think TV Dayton delivers 140 hours of operator-controlled digital programming and 28 hours of unattended programming per week, with NVerzion's automation running on all 13 channels. Its broadcast coverage includes three HD channels and 10 SD channels and extends to areas of southwestern Ohio, including Dayton and Cincinnati, as well as areas of Indiana.
The versatile and flexible TeraStore 113-T can store an impressive 5,000 hours of HD video. It includes NVerzion's embedded Xpansion file management software, which enables seamless, automated file migration based on user-defined rules and on-air scheduling requirements. TeraStore enables Think TV Dayton to interface with many of the station's additional NVerzion solutions, such as the NControl/MC master control playlists and NTime record scheduler, NGest dubbing and recording software, NPoint media file preparation software, EMC-NT Ethernet machine control, and CPIM BXF traffic system interface. TeraStore also integrates with many popular server platforms, including Omneon, Grass Valley™, Ross, 360, and others.
"As technology advances and storage capacity increases, so does our TeraStore system, which is always compatible with an existing control system," said Scott Murphy, CEO of NVerzion. "Think TV Dayton is a great example of why we've designed TeraStore so users can continually and easily expand their current TeraStore needs without worry or hassle."