The future of Digistore: modular design for the spot playback server
M.J. Danilowicz · 1994
The introduction of disc based storage systems mark an important transition in broadcast commercial spot playback. Spot playback, for commercial advertising, promotions, and news, represents one of the most labour intensive operations in the broadcast facility. Spot playback is also one of the most sensitive and important, since commercial advertising is the primary means of revenue generation for privately owned (non-government) broadcasters Disc based video storage provides a superior alternative for spot playback, The Dynatech Video Group's Digistore system was the first such system introduced to the broadcast market and implemented on air in US television stations. Digistore compresses video signals using parallel JPEG processors that enable real-time encoding and decoding onto non-proprietary Winchester drives. Four core system components comprise the Digistore system and are likely to be essential to any similar disc based spot buffer: storage media, compression engine, central processor, and application software.