Senior Golf Channel and Sony Corporation executives held a ribbon cutting ceremony on March 26 at the cable network's Orlando studios to launch the channel’s new archive system from Sony that uses optical discs.
The network, which is the first national television network in the world to adopt this new technology on a large scale, has been working with Sony for about two years on the system.
With the launch of the system, the Golf Channel will start to move thousands of hours of video tape it has shot and stored for the last 19 years to Sony's newly developed Optical Disc Archive system.
"Over recent years, Golf Channel has not only made great strides in producing quality programming but also positioned itself on the cutting edge of technology," said Dan Overleese, Golf Channel VP of TV Network Operations in a statement. "Sony has been a great partner throughout this process, and we're excited to put this new technology to work."
The new optic disc system replaces a Sony tape archival system that Golf Channel adopted eight years ago. The deployment and implementation was managed by Overleese and Ken Botelho, senior director of Engineering.
Botelho noted that the system will be used to migrate more than 115,000 hours of footage from tape to discs.
In selecting the system, Golf Channel executives cited the advantages of discs in being more durable, their ability to withstand changes in temperature and humidity, and the fact that they are much longer lasting, with a lifespan of about 50 years.
