Avid Technology, Inc. has announced that NY1 News - New York City's leading 24-hour cable news channel - has purchased and installed an end-to-end digital workflow from Avid to facilitate news production at its hub station in New York City and bureau locations in Staten Island and Bergen County. With two Avid Unity LANshare EX for News systems at the center of the workflow, all three locations will have access to powerful yet affordable shared-storage solutions for seamlessly exchanging media. This file-based workflow from Avid, which leads the industry in converting broadcasters to all-digital media production environments, will enable the NY1 news team to work more efficiently when preparing elements for the bureau news rundowns.
NY1's digital workflow also includes Avid® NewsCutter® XP workstations for editing, Avid MediaManager for asset management and browse/logging, TransferManager for moving media from one network location to another, and Avid's new AirSpeedTM video server for multiple channels of playout. In addition, the new environment at NY1 demonstrates Avid's openness with products offered by a range of third parties, including Omnibus, Associated Press (AP), and Panasonic.
"We have a unique workflow story to tell," said Joe Truncale, director of Technical Operations and Engineering for NY1. " The integration of Avid's storage and editing solutions with other vendors has made it possible to create automated local insertion segments of exclusive programming in different Time Warner Cable zones in the NYC area. We chose Avid not only because of its leadership in editing and workgroup solutions, but also because its systems integrate so well with our entire production infrastructure."
NY1 uses Omnibus' Columbus for master control automation in conjunction with the Airspeed video servers for playout control. In addition, the Avid NewsCutter XP systems support AP's ENPS newsroom automation system, enabling editors to view ENPS rundowns and scripts directly within the NewsCutter interface. Lastly, NY1 is converting its entire operation to the new Panasonic P2 tapeless video format, which Avid editing solutions will support in Q1 2005. This will allow new and current users of Avid editing systems to read and edit directly from the P2 card as native storage, assembling, trimming, editing and adding effects to the video without having to first transfer the files into the editing systems or a storage device.
"We are pleased that NY1 has selected Avid end-to-end broadcast solutions as a central component for producing news in a digital environment," said David Schleifer, vice president of Avid Broadcast and Workgroups. "The fact that NY1 is using a wide range of products from so many vendors is testament to the versatility, flexibility, and openness of our end-to-end production environment. Plus, by choosing Avid Unity LANshare EX, NY1 will be able to implement an affordable state-of-the-art workflow for producing news across three main facilities, which generate hundreds of stories for the New York area on a daily basis."
