WOWOW selects SGI for full HD broadcasting master control center

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SGI, a leader in technical computing, has announced that WOWOW, Inc has selected and integrated a content server supplied by SGI that is forming the core of a full high definition file-based program broadcasting infrastructure system.

WOWOW, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is the first private satellite and pay TV broadcaster in Japan to switch over to an entirely file-based program broadcasting infrastructure system, and offers three full high definition channels.

The overall program broadcasting infrastructure system was developed jointly with Toshiba Corporation. Software products independently developed by SGI Japan are used on 16 SGI Rackable standard-depth servers to import and search content, as well as to perform subtitle registration.

SGI Japan also custom-designed the unique configuration of the content servers, which store the vast volume of program data used in the program broadcasting system. The programs, commercials, and other content, converted to file format, are stored with redundancy in a system capable of holding up to approximately 5,000 hours of content, making it the largest capacity system of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region.

“In conjunction with the start of operation of three full high-definition channels, WOWOW began considering broadcasting equipment updates as long ago as 2006,” said Hirohisa Tanabe, chief engineer in the Master Control and Transmission Department Engineering Division at WOWOW. “Based on industry trends, we decided to switch to a file-based program broadcasting system. We have been receiving cooperation from SGI Japan since the initial stage of considering the switch to a file-based system, and have obtained satisfying results through SGI Japan’s exemplary system integration. In the end, we are aiming to use an entirely file-based system for all program data handled by the channel.”

Until now, there had been no software, in Japan or abroad, which offered SMPTE436M Closed Captioning support, but SGI Japan designed and developed software which writes Closed Caption via an SGI server. The content server is a highly reliable real-time file based workflow system for efficient end-to-end full high definition quality ingest, archiving, production, and broadcasting.

The high capacity storage system imports and centrally manages programs, commercials, and captions from tape and file formats. When these types of content are registered, location information and other meta-data are also acquired, and thumbnails are generated, enabling central management and material asset management functions.