MLB Network Taps Oracle DIVArchive, StorageTek Library Systems

Over the course of a single year, MLB Network collects and stores more than 120,000 hours of content from its daily TV programming, game telecasts and replays. It all resides in an active archive built on Oracle DIVArchive and Oracle's StorageTek SL8500 modular library system, that's easily searched and mined to allow the network to create differentiated content every day.

Initially, MLB Network built its digital asset management system to log live games and take advantage of its vast historical library. Dubbed the DIAMOND System, it includes a custom set of metadata tools to search, retrieve, and create collections and lists of elements from its video footage. Using Oracle DIVArchive as part of its solution, MLB Network can manage and access every baseball game played each season, with as many as seven different video feeds per game, catalog over 600 hours of live video content daily and archive over 7 petabytes of information annually.

Baseball fans are some of the most fervent and dedicated on Earth, and today's game is rooted in the ability and opportunity to catalog every play in every game that takes place during each season, says Tab Butler, director, post production and media management, MLB Network. With Oracle DIVArchive and Oracle's StorageTek SL8500 modular library system, we have been able to cater to baseball fans' needs by meticulously housing every highlight and being able to bring every angle into our daily programming. As a result, we've been able to not only chronicle baseball history as it's happening, but also grow our programming schedule significantly and drive our business forward by providing our fans with the content they truly desire on a daily basis.

Oracle DIVArchive helps the network select only the footage it wants to use from any given game and perform a partial file restore within a few minutes, providing more streamlined and efficient use of the archive storage. MLB Network can request content from the library and procure it within two to three minutes for on-site content editing and within an hour for the retrieval of content from the deepest off-site archives-a process that would have previously taken hours or days-to ultimately deliver richer content and programming to viewers.

Oracle DIVArchive not only helps manage content today, but also helps MLB Network plan and budget for future expansion. DIVAProtect, an Oracle DIVArchive option, collects quality and performance data in real-time and provides the tools to mine the data for peak performance metrics that help MLB Network quantify the archive's needs and evaluate the impact of new programming being added to the network's lineup. In addition, Oracle DIVArchive supports the Archive Exchange Format (AXF) open standard (recently published by SMPTE), which helps ensure long-term availability of MLB Network content no matter how storage or file system technology evolves.

MLB Network's archive resides on Oracle's StorageTek SL8500 modular library system with 3,000 slots, which takes in about 50 TB of content and swaps out 400-500 cartridges daily. To support continued growth over the next seven years, MLB Network is also evaluating expanding to a second StorageTek SL8500 modular library system and migrating to Oracle's StorageTek T10000D enterprise drives which would give the network a 10:1 cartridge space reduction and overall higher throughput over its current environment.

LINK:	http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2015/10/22/mlb-network-taps-oracle-di...
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