Launched in 2007, Austria’s Red Bull Media House broadcasts content from Servus TV and post-production company Terra Mater, as well as its own work. Each operated its own workflow and archive system, with different functions needing different applications that were installed on a different mix of operating platforms. Additionally, sharing and delivering content was done manually via FTP.

“These three isolated workflows did not communicate with each other,” says Andreas Itzlinger, Media Systems Engineer for Red Bull Media House. “This meant delays in completing projects, and with more hardware there was a higher risk of failure.”

Archived clips had to be ordered through a ticketing system. Then someone had to locate the tape, copy the content, and move the file to the SAN. It could take hours to retrieve a small clip, and accessing a large project could take up to one full week because they could only be staged on the weekends— otherwise, they would have blocked daily business. This was much too slow for today’s fast-paced content production.