e.tv chooses Front Porch Digital to manage new archive

Front Porch Digital has announced that South African free-to-air broadcaster e.tv has purchased a DIVArchive CSM system for its Cape Town facility as it converts its asset library from analogue to digital. DIVArchive will create and centralise a digital archive for e.tv and its parent, Sabido Group, improving efficiency and making it easier for both parties to monetise assets.

“In an industry where content is king, an efficient and stable archiving system is crucial for the conservation, preservation, and, ultimately, commercial exploitation of content. It became an imperative for us this year when we launched our multichannel business,” says Nohra Moerat, general manager of group libraries and archives at e.tv. “DIVArchive is a system with a proven track record and a strong reputation, and offers efficiencies that will allow us to archive and retrieve in a more organized way — which means we’ll be able to browse and choose footage selectively, save on storage, and monetise our clips more effectively.”

Currently, in order to browse and retrieve footage, e.tv must rely on transfer editors to view tapes and find appropriate clips. That is why e.tv has begun digitiding its content and storing it on LTO datatape. DIVArchive will enable e.tv to archive all legacy content, including legacy archives, raw footage, clips, stills, and supporting documents, both electronic and paper-based. With DIVArchive, e.tv will be able not only to store large volumes of digital data and archived footage, but also index and track all footage, ensuring that specific clips can easily be located on demand.

Front Porch Digital is working with its local agent, Jasco Broadcast Solutions to deliver an end-to-end system complete with installation, support, integration, and maintenance. Jasco will also provide on-site training.