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HP to Help Starz Entertainment Bring Movies to Subscribers on Cable and Satellite |
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PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 7, 2005/Satnews Daily/ — Starz Entertainment Group (SEG) said on Tuesday it has deployed an advanced HP (NYSE:HPQ)(Nasdaq:HPQ) storage solution that will streamline its delivery of uncut movies to millions of customers.
SEG said it will use the HP Media Storage solution to store and manage its complete repository of movies and television content, which is delivered to cable and satellite operators and ultimately to its approximately 25 million subscribers via 13 channels, including Starz and Encore.
SEG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, provides cable and satellite-delivered premium movies in the United States. Like many other media companies, SEG must be able to manage massive amounts of digital information. For example, a single, full-length movie in digital format can consume 140 gigabytes of storage.
Designed specifically for the broadcast and media industry, the HP Media Storage solution offers extremely fast and efficient access to these huge digital video files. This ultimately helps media companies such as SEG reduce operational costs and improve customer service.
HP initiated the project by working with SEG to digitize all of its tape-based content and convert it to an industry-specific file format. The solution will support SEG's digital asset environment, which includes content ingestion, re-purposing, management and packaging for distribution.
“HP is helping media and entertainment companies unlock the value of their digitized assets,” said Matt Lane, director, Media and Entertainment Solutions, HP. “Our collaboration with Starz Entertainment Group to streamline production and re-purpose content demonstrates how the right technology and the right expertise can make a significant -- and valuable -- difference.”
Using the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array 8000, HP Media Storage creates a fast, efficient, high-availability storage area network (SAN) that provides SEG with 175 terabytes of capacity. The entire system, including all applications accessing it, is based on HP ProLiant DL380 and DL585 servers. StorNext data management software from HP partner Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC) allows the entire storage capacity to be presented to the applications as a single, high-performance file system.
With its SAN architecture, the HP Media Storage solution creates a virtualized storage environment that delivers “shared access,” a key benefit for SEG. In this environment, a single copy of a video file resides in one location and all other servers have shared, concurrent access to the file.
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