HBO transfers aging library to digital with Wazee
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 23 March 2018

American premium cable and satellite television network HBO has started using Wazee Digital Core to digitise and archive sports content currently stored in endangered videotape formats.

In doing so, Wazee says that HBO can preserve its deteriorating content while providing access to the archive for stakeholders that need that content.

"Many of HBO Sports' assets are on legacy tape formats that need to be migrated to digital because the physical formats are deteriorating, and the videotape machines that play them back are quickly becoming extinct," explained HBO VP Michael Castro. "HBO Sports now has access to its rich history of sports content digitally, unearthing what has long been dormant, sitting on a shelf. Through Wazee Digital, we are rediscovering these historic moments and making them available for future use."

Core is Wazee Digital's enterprise software-as-a-service platform built specifically for the cloud. The centre of the Wazee Digital content management system, Core manages the complex tasks of video acquisition, effective workflow, universal access, metadata management and automated delivery to any authorized user on any screen. It includes metadata management and workflow intelligence, and provides secure cloud storage that scales with the size of HBO's digital library.

The solution is designed to ensure digital preservation of HBO's analogue and digital videotape formats using AS-02 MXF versioning. HBO's MXF-wrapped assets serve as master files that can accommodate many input and output formats, while flexible metadata support — including controlled vocabulary, keyword assist, and integration with thesauri vendors such as Synaptica — aids in search and discovery.

"Core gives HBO a market-leading cloud asset management platform that provides HBO complete control of their precious content — both endangered and recently produced," added Harris Morris, chairman and CEO of Wazee Digital. “With Core, HBO now has a progressive solution that allows them to archive, manage, research, view, download and share sports content that otherwise may have languished on shelves in tape format. The support of AS-02 archive format using JPEG 2000 is the first of its kind for a cloud-native asset management platform. This strategy will help HBO Sports bring its rich history of sports content back to life, while making it searchable, discoverable and monetisable once again."