nobeo Adopts Facilis Shared Storage at TV/OTT Production Complex

German TV production service provider nobeo GmbH, located close to the media hub in Cologne, works for some of Europe’s major broadcasters and content creators such as Endemol Shine Germany GmbH, UFA Show & Factual GmbH, filmpool entertainment GmbH, RedSeven Entertainment GmbH and Norddeich TV. Its studio complex is designed as a production environment for TV and web TV productions with seven studios, a post production unit, a blue screen stage and an open air set, making it suitable for complex live shows, dramas and international programming.

nobeo has been part of the Euro Media Group since 2007, enabling it to operate on a global scale. As part of this partnership, nobeo acts as an interdisciplinary media centre supplying VOD and OTT services, as well as conventional TV production. Consequently, the teams need to carry out their operations on specialized production systems.

The facility operates an Avid infrastructure comprising 80 Media Composer edit systems and six ProTools HD edit suites. It can also support TV productions at most locations from its own mobile HD production units. Its vehicle nobeo1one, among the most up to date in Europe, is equipped for entertainment and sports broadcasts with 16 cameras and a large workspace.

nobeo initially employed Avid Unity MediaNetwork storage, but recently underwent a large-scale installation to replace the former set-up with Facilis shared storage with a local channel partner, Speed Systems in Cologne. Facilis has installed three 16-drive TerraBlock 24EX/16 expandable storage systems with TerraBlock TX16 high-speed expansion units, and one TerraBlock Hybrid24 storage system.

All the TerraBlocks are connected to a switched 10 Gbit/s Ethernet ingest and logging network and to an 8Gbps Fibre Channel editing network that supports their entire campus, where they manage all ingest, logging, service and back-up operations. 

 “A key driver for upgrading to Facilis was our existing Fibre Channel infrastructure, which includes numerous SANbox switches and host adapters,” said Norman Ende, Head of Postproduction at nobeo Studios. “We like the system’s option to use both types of connections – Ethernet for service tasks and our fast Fibre Channel for editing jobs.”

One of Facilis TerraBlock’s primary characteristic is the collaborative operating practices it supports, which Norman described as essential for an Avid workflow. “We’ve already been able to see the effect of the high speed of the Facilis system and the high capacity, cost-effective nature of the storage. Expanding our network with cheaper Ethernet 1 or 10 Gbit clients for logging and ingesting tasks is straightforward - we can add an extra server without having to concern ourselves with server management, databases or client licensing,” Norman said. www.facilis.com