Avid to Provide Production Solutions and Support for NBC’s Coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games

Tewksbury, Mass., July 2008 – Avid Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced that it has been selected to implement an end-to-end editing workflow for NBC during the network’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics from Beijing, China August 8-24. This marks NBC and Avid’s fifth consecutive Olympic Games working together.

NBC was looking for a vendor that understood the rigorous demands of a high-scale production and could offer a solution that would enable the network to deliver more than 3,600 hours of HD programming over a 17-day period. In order to fulfill this task, NBC opted for 224TB of Avid Unity™ ISIS® shared storage to be dispersed across four systems, including an Avid® Interplay® system, which will enable scalability, vast client connectivity, resiliency, and a facility-wide workflow. NBC will also deploy approximately 34 Avid systems for editing, ingest, capture, and playout, and will use Avid DNxHD® codec to significantly reduce storage and bandwidth requirements, while providing mastering-quality HD media.

“In Beijing we are surpassing the combined total for every televised Summer Olympics in U.S. history. In order to handle this around-the-clock coverage, we need solutions that are resilient, scalable, and able to handle rapid turnaround. Avid was able to once again deliver a workflow to help us meet these rigorous demands,” said Dave Mazza, senior vice president, NBC Olympics Engineering. “With these games, we have installed the largest and most integrated Avid environment to date for NBC Olympics – particularly with the addition of the Avid Unity ISIS and Interplay systems. Being able to integrate all of the Avid solutions, on a combination of shared-storage networks over Gigabit Ethernet, plays an integral role in helping NBC succeed in delivering the most hours of Olympic programming ever.”

The 75,000-square-foot International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Beijing, China has a number of HD nonlinear edit suites outfitted with both Avid Symphony™ Nitris® and Media Composer® systems, connected to Avid Unity ISIS and Avid Interplay systems. Avid DNxchange® systems will integrate with an EVS XT[2] system for a seamless workflow that will enable the real-time conversion of EVS HD media to the Avid DNxHD 120 format – to facilitate HD production at 1080i/50 resolutions within the Avid shared storage environment. Because Avid DNxHD files support full raster 8- and 10-bit media, they deliver the pristine quality of 10-bit uncompressed HD images – at dramatically reduced file sizes. When fully operational, the NBC IBC will be equipped to handle more than 160TB of HD media in a shared-storage environment – or 1,250 hours of HD footage.
Kirk Arnold, Avid’s executive vice president of Customer Operations said, “We are thrilled to be a part of one of the most ambitious media projects in broadcasting history and very proud to be working together with NBC on our fifth consecutive Olympic Games. Our customers are constantly telling us that quality, value and performance are really important to them, and The Olympic Games are a perfect example of an environment that will push our products to just about every limit, around the clock, for several weeks. NBC’s choice to use Avid solutions further demonstrates our commitment to delivering proven solutions that broadcasters can count on to get the job done, day in and day out.”
© 2008 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Avid, Avid DNxHD, Avid Unity, Digidesign, DNxchange, Interplay, ISIS, M-Audio, Media Composer, Nitris, Pinnacle Systems, Sibelius, Softimage, Sundance Digital and Symphony are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. Emmy is a registered trademark of ATAS/NATAS. Oscar is a trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Grammy is a trademark of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.