Sony's Ci Media Cloud Keeps NHRA Moving
Brie Clayton April 25, 2024
0 Comments
Cloud-Based Media Asset Management and Collaboration Platform Accelerates Ingest, Editing, File-Sharing and Post-Production Workflows
Providing a safe environment for its drivers to quickly get from point A to point B is the mission of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The organization has the same goal for its media asset management, and with Sony's Ci Media Cloud platform, NHRA global production workflows are moving as fast as the action on its tracks.
Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!
This happens because the functionality/content marked as Google Youtube uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
Can't see this video? Click here!
NHRA content teams regularly ingest hours of weekly race footage, securely share and remotely edit files with teams nationwide and then deliver final assets to multiple platforms, partners, and networks - all under tight deadline pressures.
With the high volume of content NHRA generates, Ci was the logical choice for transforming its on-site and cloud-based workflows.
We want everyone to have the right tools to do their jobs efficiently and get our content out as quickly as possible, said Rob Hedrick, technical operations manager and senior director of production for the National Hot Rod Association. Sony Ci is the uniting space where everybody can go to store, edit and share assets, securely and quickly.
The NHRA team handles all production and distribution for its regular weekly TV programming, including 20 national events as part of the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series that airs on Fox Sports, plus an average of eight broadcasts on the FOX broadcast network, as well as shoulder programming, divisional and regional events. The team serves its NHRA TV OTT subscribers, multiple content delivery platforms and social media channels.
Their workload also includes managing content for in-venue experiences, post-production shows like NHRA in 30 and the Lucas Oil Sportsmen series and Pro Mod series, as well as ongoing marketing, promotional and archival content and a robust FAST channel where fans can watch content from the inception of the sport in 1951.
The team manages at least three simultaneous productions during every racing event. That translates to about four terabytes of content at each event, with anywhere between eight to 12 hours of video from as many as 50 cameras connected via fiber, wireless or directly to the cloud, and the cameras shooting content exclusively for social media.
Annually, the amount of content created by the NHRA production teams ranges between 600 to 900 hours - and every bit of that content funnels through Ci.
Getting Content Out Faster
We're dealing with multiple days' worth of multiple hours of event footage, said Megan Sewell, director of post-production for NHRA. Ci lets us break it all down and organize it by the different runs, special events or scenics [a track or surrounding area]. We have to produce multiple cut-down versions within 24 hours of an event, and we are able to put those together almost immediately. It's work that we couldn't do without Sony Ci.
Sewell recalled multiple examples of Ci saving the production team valuable time at high-profile moments. For example, following each year's final event, NHRA champions are announced and then recognized at an awards ceremony the next day with each champion celebrated with a one- to two-minute video highlight reel.
Using Ci, we're able to upload Sunday's files immediately, turn them around to create those videos overnight and have them ready for Monday, she said.
With audiences on all platforms now accustomed to on-demand content, the Ci platform's MediaLog app saves the NHRA social media team at least 90 minutes of work following each event.
Timeliness is everything since we're constantly pushing content and updates out to our fans, said Nykki Schele, senior social media manager at NHRA. Before Ci, I would have to go to the TV truck with a hard drive to get clips at the end of the night. Now, whether I am in the media room, in the pits, or at the top end of the racetrack, I can access content and get it out to our social channels immediately.
Ci makes clipping longer-form pieces into shorter social-friendly files easy and fast, and also helps remote teams and different departments share files seamlessly.
We're often creating pieces on the social side that the TV or in-venue teams would like to use, Schele said. We can dump everything into Ci, push it out to multiple departments at once, and everyone has access to the same videos, which is super helpful.
Using a cloud-based platform like Ci eliminates the need for NHRA to maintain large on-premises storage pools in its offices, especially with most people working remotely or out of multiple offices. Editors, directors, announcers, and producers are all located in different cities, but everyone is able to view everything, assemble a show, check the timing, make approvals, and then send it to its final destination.
With such a distributed team, the flexibility in how NHRA can set up separate spaces for different teams in Ci is a significant benefit. The ability to create and assign different Workspaces for various workflows and the ability to quickly share access to footage with remote team members enhances productivity.
I can easily communicate with my producer in California or a track in Saint Louis asking for video, Sewell said. Ci's cloud-based transferring and storage makes our communication so much better.
A Successful Track Record
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Sony's Ci Media Cloud Keeps NHRA Moving 
