Reds’ Production Manager Dave Storm looked for a system that would offer short and long-term benefits – making it easy to create the best shots and packages for stadium display while streamlining overall media management. Because the production unit acts as a full service agency, producing television ads for sponsors, fan events, community outreach videos as well in-game stadium coverage, Storm wanted to centralize the management of both media and metadata (which includes every play of each game). He also wanted to allow multiple editors to work simultaneously on the same media and projects.

The Solution
Working with Cutting Edge Audio and Video Group of San Francisco, the Reds acquired a 40TB EditShare Storage Series server. “It's used for every aspect of our workflow. We use it as the central repository; everything that comes in or out of our department passes through the EditShare whether its video, music, graphic, even audio from Pro Tools, whatever,” says Storm. “It gives us tremendous flexibility and really improves our workflow.”

The Reds’ EditShare is connected via 10-Gigabit Ethernet to an HP ProCurve network switch to provide optimal performance for the high volume HD workflow. EditShare storage servers are fully compatible with industry-standard editing and compositing tools including Apple, Adobe, Assimilate, Autodesk, Avid, Digidesign, Sony, and Thomson. Editors freely share media regardless of size or format. EditShare also provides true project sharing for both Apple and Avid editors with user management tools that are designed specifically for real-time collaboration in post and broadcast workflows. In the Reds operation, 5 editors working on Apple Final Cut Pro workstations connected to the switch via 1 Gigabit Ethernet have simultaneous access to the media.

The integrations between EditShare, logging software from Dixon Sports Computing and EVS servers give the Reds a complete, integrated media management package with metadata cross-referencing capabilities. “The EditShare lends itself to our schizophrenic workflow, and the combination with Dixon’s Clip Management System gives us a really nice way of turning the data to meet all our needs,” Storm explains. Diversified Systems assisted with the facility installation.

Typically, games are being recorded by EVS from six different “iso” camera positions around the park. During each game a logger using Dixon’s logging interface monitors house time code to match it to particular events (player, pitcher, strike/ball counts, etc). Basic roster and statistical information from the Reds’ DakStats scoring system is automatically incorporated into the Dixon logger. Working in tandem, EVS operators identify the best angles on key plays by marking the timecode ins and outs. All of this metadata becomes part of the Reds’ Hilite Database and is immediately available to Final Cut Pro editors who create the instant replay videos from subclips generated from the database in the EVS system. All subclips are automatically rewrapped with a QuickTime wrapper and moved to the EditShare where they can be used for highlight packages and additional post-production projects. “We worked very closely with Cutting Edge and Dixon to perfect the workflow and we’ve seen real efficiencies,” says Storm. This fully-integrated system is a huge time saver, eliminating multiple ingests of media and redundant data entry into different devices and databases.

The combined system offers both immediacy and long-term media management. “During the game we can be on an edit station selecting hits and strikeouts and putting the highlight package together in a hurry based on information in Dixon,” Storm explains. “Then a month later somebody can look at that same data from a completely different angle referencing the same metadata via the Dixon software. Say I want to see all the homeruns in this month. Or, what did Joey Votto do the last three months? Let’s look at those clips and those isos. We pull the media from EditShare - whether it’s for a commercial or a video we’re putting together for a school appearance. We’re using the same tools for completely different purposes and that’s very powerful.”

The EditShare has proven to be a powerful workflow engine for the Reds. Even during long weekend projects that require heavy, non-stop editing on all workstations, Storm says the EditShare performs “without a single hitch, no drags or slowdowns.” The RAID5 configuration of the EditShare provides additional data security. The ability to work quickly and in teams while simultaneously using different applications has thrilled the Reds’ production team. “I can be working on an After Effects project and be pulling video elements into it, then flip over to a Final Cut Pro project and be pulling totally huge, hi-res 1080i video into that,” Storm explains. “And we can throw it right back at our control room very quickly, very effortlessly. This really works for us. We’re really getting spoiled.”