The background.
BBC Studios and Post Production provides HD TV studios and studio support, post-production facilities and digital media services to production companies and broadcasters. A fully owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, its clients include ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as well as the BBC, plus an array of independent producers.
One of BBC S&PP's biggest shows is Strictly Come Dancing ( Strictly'), the flagship BBC One entertainment show in which celebrities take to the dance floor with a professional partner to compete for the coveted Glitter Ball Trophy.
The main weekend shows air on BBC One in primetime on a Saturday and Sunday night but the show is so popular that viewers are also given the chance to catch up with the latest from the dance floor on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, which airs each weekday on BBC Two.
BBC S&PP provides full studio facilities, post-production services and technical support for the entire series, including It Takes Two, from its base in Elstree in London.
The Customer Challenge
When Strictly moved from standard definition (SD) to high definition (HD) there was a requirement to invest in extra storage capacity to cope with the additional data that comes with working in a higher resolution.
The challenge at the time was to have sufficient online capable storage for Strictly, which generates about 150 hours of material per week, explains BBC S&PP post-production supervisor, John Loughman.
The storage needed to be fast enough to run multiple ingests and also be read by multiple machines. A lot of storage was required. Price was a big concern but the big thing was reliability.
The Solution and Workflow
After evaluating the market options, a seven node, 210 terabyte Matrixstore from Object Matrix was purchased. Hosted in BBC S&PP's data centre, it is used for ingesting memory card content and acts as a nearline archive for all the Strictly footage.
It is our main nearline for any tapeless material we ingest, says Loughman. This includes media and tapeless rushes from PSE shoots. We also use it for backing up studio shows that we do tapelessly..
As part of the installation Object Matrix provided customised metadata entry forms for its DropSpot technology. The forms are used during the Strictly ingest process by BBC S&PP data wranglers.
Users have to input meaningful metadata, explains Nick Pearce, sales and marketing director of Object Matrix. That creates a meaningful file system and folder structure so that, whether they are using search or the file system, they can find the content easily.
The DropSpots automatically back-up the footage captured on the memory cards and then, based on the information on the metadata document, file the media away in a vault inside MatrixStore.
It is a very straight forward process, says Loughman. There are a selection of lists and only a couple of required fields required. From there we back-up the footage from the MatrixStore on to LTO tapes and onto a data server.
Once the footage has been ingested and backed up, feeds are then passed through a media asset management (MAM) system and logged. From there, chosen clips are made available to Avid Media Composer non-linear editing workstations. Strictly producers can also clip additional material using the logging system.
All footage is then transferred in HD, negating the need for the final conform process. In some cases, to balance storage loads, some packages are cut at a reduced resolution on Media Composer and conformed on the MatrixStore.
You can AMA (Avid Media Access) link as you would any other drives, says Loughman. Quite often well be asked to go back to rushes and select a shot or clip-up something or get it into the Avid. We can do that with MatrixStore without having to go back to an LTO tape.
The Future
MatrixStore has now been in place at BBC S&PP for more than five years. The nature of the technology means that, in the future, more workflows can be added, if required, and the technology can also be used to back-up footage held on other storage systems.
Our vault technology provides virtual spaces within the MatrixStore, explains Pearce. Users can simply add a new vault for any new workflow at any time.
We do have other nearline storage available but the MatrixStore is there, its being used and it is one of our go-to places for nearline, concludes Loughman.
It is currently being used for our post-production workflows but it could one day be used for our live studio storage too.
###
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
The background.
