Demonstrates How Small-Market Stations are Embracing Leading-Edge Technology
(CINCINNATI, November 14, 2007) Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), an international communications and information technology company, announced that JW Broadcasting’s WDBD Fox 40 and its two sister TV stations have transitioned from tape-based to disk-based archive storage with the Harris® NEXIO™ NXIQ™ 6000i clustered storage solution.
The Jackson, Mississippi-based broadcaster is using the NXIQ™ system to archive its entire content library for all three television stations.
“Our old archive storage system had become expensive to maintain, and didn’t offer the necessary technology to accommodate our plans for future storage of high-definition programming,” said Robert Flanagan, chief engineer at WDBD-TV. “Since installing the NXIQ™ solution, we’ve already been able to maximize our storage capabilities, improve workflow management in our master control room and lower our operational expenses. At the same time, we knew we were making a future-proof investment that would allow us to affordably migrate to HD.”
The NXIQ™ 6000i storage solution offers broadcast operations many advantages over traditional, tape-based archives — providing fast read/write transfer times, robust content protection and the ability to expand up to 576 TB of clustered storage in a single file system. At WDBD, the NXIQ™ 6000i is part of a storage area network based around legacy Harris transmission servers. The system is used to archive all of the station’s on-air production and news programming, and is controlled with Sundance Archive Manager using SGL FlashNet as the archive management software layer.
“WDBD is a great example of a small-market station embracing leading-edge technology,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president of Harris Broadcast Communications. “The rapid growth of digital content is forcing broadcasters of all sizes to face the same data storage, management and archiving challenges that, until recently, were experienced only by large enterprises. In broadcast environments of any size, the NXIQ™ provides a practical, reliable solution for broadcasters working with both standard- and high-definition content, or planning the migration to HD.”
Available from Harris through an OEM relationship with Isilon® Systems, the leader in clustered storage, NEXIO™ NXIQ™ is a family of enterprise-class, near-line/archive storage solutions that combine an intelligent, distributed file system with modular hardware to deliver unmatched simplicity, resiliency and scalability. With their clustered storage architecture, ease of use, self-healing and highly redundant operations, all NXIQ™ products extend the reliability of storage area networks by adding a high-performance, high-capacity alternative to a mirrored server solution. The NXIQ™ 6000i clustered storage system addresses the full spectrum of storage needs in the most demanding television production and broadcast environments.
The NXIQ™ 6000i is among the wide range of Harris solutions that optimize the newsroom and channel release workflows of today’s broadcast operations.
Harris Broadcast Communications offers products, systems and services that provide interoperable workflow solutions that span the entire broadcast delivery chain. The Harris ONE approach brings together highly integrated and cost-effective products that are ideal for emerging media business models and for customers upgrading media operations to digital and high-definition services.
About JW Broadcasting
JW Broadcasting is a growing broadcast company that owns and operates KMIZ ABC-17, KQFX Fox-38,MyZou32 and Stormtrack 24/7 in the Columbia-Jefferson City DMA. Through JW Mississippi, LLC JW owns WUFX My35 and operates WDBD Fox 40 and WXMS (all Jackson, MS) under a management agreement.
About Harris Corporation
Harris is an international communications and information technology company serving government, defense and commercial markets in more than 150 countries. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has annual revenue of over $4 billion and 16,000 employees — including nearly 7,000 engineers and scientists. Harris is dedicated to developing best-in-class assured communications™ products, systems, and services. Additional information about Harris Corporation is available at
www.harris.com.
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