Media Strategy Partners Implements Integrated Digital Asset Management System for NBC's Coverage of the Olympic Winter Games in Torino

Media Strategy Partners Implements Integrated Digital Asset Management System for NBC's Coverage of the Olympic Winter Games in Torino

Media Strategy Partners, LLC ("MSP") Engaged by NBC to Architect and Implement a Multi-Vendor Solution to Deliver Integrated Browse-Quality Video and Results & Scoring Information to the Desktop, Real-Time, for NBC Production Staff at the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games

NEW YORK, Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Media Strategy Partners, LLC ("MSP"), a leader in specialized Digital Asset Management (DAM) consulting services targeted at the broadcast and cable market, announced today that NBC, for its second Olympics broadcast in a row, has engaged its help in designing and implementing an integrated desktop DAM system for supporting its coverage of the XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, February 10-26.

Working closely with NBC Olympics' Engineering, IT and Production staff, MSP has architected, deployed and supported a multi-vendor solution that brings daily hundreds of hours of fully annotated, browse-quality MXF-wrapped MPEG-4 video, real-time, to the desktops of production users throughout NBC's plant at the International Broadcast Center (IBC), as well as to NBC News producers located approximately one mile away. For the first time at NBC, these desktop video "proxies" at Torino are now additionally indexed automatically real-time by event results and scoring information that is immediately searchable.

For NBC at the 2006 Torino Olympic Games, MSP has integrated components from Cyradis Technology of Canada (ingest automation and control), MOG Solutions of Portugal (proxy encoders), Blue Order of Germany (media asset management) and Information and Display Systems, LLC (IDS) of Jacksonville, Fla. (results and scoring information) together with NBC Olympics' legacy Tape Library and Logging system. The resultant solution enables any desktop PC user on the NBC LAN at Torino to search and view video proxies, storyboards, and time-coded metadata (both manually entered real-time by human loggers as well as automated using live results and scoring information pulled from the Host Internet Data Feed by IDS). Video proxies may be frame-accurately rough- edited, even while the material is still recording, and the edit decision list imported into non-linear editors for batch-digitization of the high-resolution material recorded on corresponding HDCAM tapes. By adding daily to the online archive of proxies and metadata, that grows at over two hundred hours per day, NBC production staff is provided throughout the Games with desktop search and edit functionality that is identical whether the video was recorded three minutes ago, or three days ago.

"Desktop searching, browsing and shot-picking of material enables our production staff to streamline the selection and editing process and rapidly make decisions about the clips they will use before they go into the edit room," said Gary Zenkel, President of NBC Olympics. "Using these desktop tools allows us to support the unprecedented NBC Olympics coverage without adding significantly to the overall infrastructure. MSP's expertise in designing simple but powerful workflows and interfaces built over complex background integrations is invaluable in creating a user-friendly solution that has been widely adopted, and extremely well-received, by our production end-users."

"Rapidly finding specific shots of athletes and events from the countless hours of live Host and NBC coverage coming from the venues over seventeen days is a primary objective of producers working in a time-critical environment," said Peter Humphrey, co-founder of MSP. "Recognizing this basic goal, and the technical challenges imposed by the first all-HD Olympics, MSP has worked closely with NBC and the other vendors to develop a solution that is quick and simple to learn, extremely powerful in its application, and yet adds no significant technical burden to the engineering of NBC's facility."

About NBC Olympics

NBC, "America's Olympic Network," owns the exclusive U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games, television's most powerful property, through 2012, which includes Torino, Italy in 2006, Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012. This February, NBC Universal will present the 2006 Olympic Winter Games from Torino, Italy (February 10-26, 2006). In August 2004, 203 million viewers watched as the networks of NBC Universal - NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo, Telemundo, and NBC's HD affiliates - offered a record 1,210 hours of Olympic coverage from Athens. In February 2002, 187 million watched the Salt Lake Olympic Games on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. For additional information, log onto http://nbcolympics.com/, the Internet's preeminent source for Olympic results, video, photos, news and athlete profiles through the Torino Games. NBCOlympics.com will be the only site in the United States featuring competition video of complete runs and routines, real-time results and medal counts for every event, an interactive television viewing guide to help visitors navigate the 418 hours of Olympic programming on the NBC Universal networks, and comprehensive, multimedia-filled profiles on every American Olympian.

About Media Strategy Partners, LLC

Media Strategy Partners (MSP) is a specialist digital asset management consulting company servicing the broadcast, cable and other video-centric industries. MSP's digital asset management consulting services include: strategic, technical and design consulting; project management; RFP generation; training; and support. For more information, please contact:

Paul Gudelis
Media Strategy Partners, LLC
P.O. Box 343
Cos Cob, CT 06807
pgudelis@msp-llc.com
Tel: 1-203-409-3969
Mob: 1-203-273-6036
Fax: 1-203-653-2290
http://msp-llc.com/

The names of companies mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com/.

Source: Media Strategy Partners, LLC

CONTACT: Paul Gudelis, Media Strategy Partners, LLC, +1-203-409-3969,
Mob: +1-203-273-6036, Fax: 1-203-653-2290, or pgudelis@msp-llc.com

Web site: http://www.nbcolympics.com/

Web site: http://www.msp-llc.com/

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