RAI Selects Sony's XDCAM For Strategic Move To HD

RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) has announced a major investment in XDCAM High Definition technology that will see the Italian public broadcaster transition to an HD infrastructure over a three year period.
The deal will see 180 of Sony's high-end PDW-700 camcorders and 180 PDW-HD 1500 decks used across the organisation's entire range of operations from news gathering to drama and documentaries.
The flexibility of XDCAM tapeless technology will enable RAI to manager its legacy SD operations and move to HD transmission over the next three years.
Andrea Lorusso Caputi, Director of Production TV Department, said: "RAI is committed to moving towards HD content production and this agreement with Sony represents the first pillar in our plan to create a proper platform to migrate to High Definition.
"The XDCAM format and Professional Disc media are critical as they allow us to maintain our current workflow process, whilst offering innovative new IT features to deliver tapeless operational capabilities."
Commenting further on the decision to select MPEG HD422 50Mb/s for the new production platform, Ubaldo Toni, Head of Engineering Group, Production TV Dept of RAI, explained: "As this was a significant investment decision for us, we had to be sure we made the right choice, not only from a technology perspective, but even more so at an operational level. We trialled intensively Sony's XDCAM technology at the world's two largest sporting events throughout the summer, and the results achieved have been very positive."
The versatility of the XDCAM system will enable it to firstly act as a drop-in replacement for traditional VTRs allowing XDCAM discs to be used within a traditional tape-based workflow. More importantly, the decks will also then serve as IT drives for easy transfer of the data files into non-linear editing (NLE) systems.
Benito Manlio Mari, General Manager of Media Business, at Sony Professional Solutions Europe, Italia, said: "This agreement sees RAI join a growing list of high-profile European broadcasters that have quickly made substantial investments in XDCAM422.
"In just six months, this new high-end tapeless technology has been embraced by these customers to deliver a variety of programmes ranging from news to drama production.
"For Sony, this latest XDCAM announcement is a great endorsement of our high-end tapeless IT strategy.
"Sony has enjoyed a strong, long-team strategic partnership with RAI stretching back to the 1980s and without doubt trust is an important element when a company moves to a new generation technology. We are very pleased that RAI selected Sony for this business-critical project."
(KMcA)