DirecTV Latin America (DTLA) has selected Aspera, Inc.'s software as part of a project to streamline editing, post-production and distribution of content by reducing its dependence on video tapes.
Aspera had worked with DirecTV in the U.S. for several years. It began working with DTLA last year and has since deployed its solution in three facilities, with plans to roll it out eventually to 11 of DirecTV Latin America's facilities as part of a larger project to move towards file-based workflows, notes Kip Schauer, VP of sales at Aspera.
DTVLA acquires produces and broadcasts content for 9 million Latin American customers across the Latin America and the Caribbean. The company receives and edits content from providers across the globe, and distributes to broadcast facilities in the United States, Mexico and South America.
Before using implementing the new system, the post-production and distribution process involved receiving, editing, dubbing and shipping physical tapes and as more HD content became available, the cost of tape skyrocketed.
Since installing Aspera's technology, the multichannel provider has reduced the amount of time spent dealing with tapes, boosting efficiency and productivity five-fold, and reduced HD tape usage by 35-40 percent.
Besides the reduction in their usage of tape and the increased productivity, Schauer noted that their software also provided them robust security system and flexible, reliable way of moving large files so they could adapt the transport to the available bandwidth.
"We have a proven technology for large video files that might total run 65 gigabytes to 85 gigabytes in size," Schauer explains.
This is important because telcos in Latin America are expanding available bandwidth but the pipes tend not to be as large as the U.S. and "they wanted a solution that would manage the speed for the available network," he says.
