KWTV Improves Access and Efficiency with Telestream MAPreview
Digital capture replaces tape, saving KWTV time and money for program analysis, competitive review and ad-run verification
Nevada City, Calif. , December 14, 2005 - Telestream, the leader in digital media access, encoding and workflow automation solutions, today announced that Oklahoma-based KWTV has deployed Telestream’s MAPreview digital video capture and logging solution. KWTV chose the Telestream solution to replace its massive tape-based video archives with a more efficient file-based, digital archiving solution.
“The Telestream solution definitely makes us more efficient,” said Randy Cassimus, director of operations at KWTV. “We used to spend a lot of time changing out tapes, stocking tapes, having people find tapes. Now, program content is all there on the server ready for access from a PC by anyone hooked up to the system.”
Owned by Griffin Communications, KWTV is Oklahoma City’s only locally-owned and operated television station. Prior to Telestream, KWTV recorded all of their aired programs onto VHS tapes. That involved multiple VHS tape machines going nonstop 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, all newscasts were recorded onto Beta machines. This required a great deal of machine maintenance, tape handling, and shelf and rack space to hold the tapes.
Using MAPreview, KWTV now captures and archives all station programming 24/7 in efficient Windows Media 9 format onto MAP media capture servers. These programs are held for 9 months for BMI and ASCAP audits, ad-run verification, program analysis and executive review. MAPreview also captures and archives KWTV’s two competitors’ programs 24/7. These programs are held for one month and used by the marketing and news departments for competitive review. In addition, newscasts are archived in higher resolution formats for awards submission.
“This is a news director’s dream,” notes Cassimus. “With MAPreview we can pull up our newscasts alongside our competitors and watch all three shows simultaneously. Our general manager and news director use it quite a bit.”
MAPreview provides multi-feed media recording, organization and desktop viewing in one easy-to-use server-based application. Metadata such as closed captioning, timecode, keyframes, labels, and as-run logs are captured during ingest, plus custom metadata labels can be added to enable powerful searching. KWTV have programmed their MAPreview to automatically display ratings data with the video every 15 minutes. They also use it to confirm proper closed captioning on the video.
One of KWTV’s favorite features is the ability to get in and trim out clips from the recordings and email them. For instance, for verification of ads, it is now much easier to find the video segment in question and send it to the advertiser. This process used to involve several people and a great deal of time and effort. Now, KWTV account executives simply log onto the system from their desktops and call up the timeframe. Once the spot is located, they simply trim it out and email it as a Windows Media file to their clients.
“We are delighted that KWTV selected MAPreview for their digital archiving solution,” said David Heppe, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Telestream. “They are a great example of a station utilizing our media capture solution to streamline multiple media access and review tasks at their facility.”
Deployed in April 2005, KWTV was one of Telestream’s early MAPreview customers. According to Cassimus, they are extremely satisfied with their MAPreview system. This implementation is an important step in KWTV’s migration to digital technology.
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About Telestream (www.telestream.net)
Telestream products have set the standard with the world's leading media and entertainment companies, corporations, and government institutions for the encoding, organizing, and delivery of digital media. Customers rely on Telestream products for convenient, cost-effective, and robust digital media access and exchange over IP networks. The company's automation applications and smart media organization solutions streamline workflows for broadcasters and media companies, as well as content owners and content creators in government, higher education, and corporate markets. Telestream and its team of video experts are located in Nevada City , the "video valley" region of Northern California . The company is privately held.
