Sat.1 Norddeutschland Hamburg Chooses Sony HDXchange

Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 8, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Sat.1 Norddeutschland GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sat.1 that produces the regional programme “17:30 live” at its Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen and Hanover locations, has chosen Sony’s HDXchange production system as part of its transition to a networked, file-based workflow. Sony PSE Solutions Management Cologne, which specializes in complete solutions, planned the new system and is due to install it by early August 2008. It comprises 10 browsing workstations, two ingest workstations, four Vegas editing workstations and two Final Cut Pro editing workstations, as well as a three-channel playout system. The existing Sony DV station will be connected to the central HDXchange system and used for archiving.

“HDXchange gives us what we need for daily news production: fast and straightforward processing of images on a file-based, networked production platform,” explains Michael Grahl, managing director of Sat.1 Norddeutschland GmbH. “The solution is ideal for our XDCAM HD and EX1 camera systems. Another requirement was an open industry standard. With the Final Cut Pro editing system, HDXchange supplies the final building blocks for a fully digital, file-based workflow.”

Sony promotes its system as an innovative complete solution for a tapeless, networked production environment, with HDXchange being particularly attractive to small and medium-sized broadcasters. As a smaller version of Sony’s large SONAPS production environment and a versatile editing, storage and content-management system, HDXchange offers a fast and efficient workflow from acquisition to transmission.

The scalable platform is based on recognized open industry standards and, according to Sony, has been optimized to support multiple clients. In addition to numerous Sony SD and HD formats, the workflow solution—which the manufacturer describes as “extremely format-friendly”—can also use various third-party formats. Tape-based SD and HD signals, such as VTR and live-video sources, can be ingested through digital SD/HD-SDI inputs.