The StorNext platform will be used in creating athletics-focused video features, live game webcasts, highlights, coaches' shows and documentary-style filmed entertainment, as well as a growing volume of educational content. The efficient, collaborative Quantum storage platform enables the Fighting Irish Media team to produce event highlights within minutes of a sports event's conclusion. The new workflow also has improved overall editing productivity by 50%, the companies said.

Fighting Irish Media covers 26 teams ranging from football and basketball to swimming, fencing, tennis, golf and lacrosse. In addition to streaming 125-130 athletic events a year, posting over 1,000 short-form videos on a variety of platforms and creating TV shows and features, the Fighting Irish Media team supports content creation and distribution for the broader Notre Dame educational and faith mission.

For its athletics coverage, the team previously had sent cameras out to events, brought footage back, copied it to removable drives and then edited, transcoded and distributed finished clips. The process often took hours. Realising that it was missing a valuable opportunity to connect with fans and address their desire for more timely content, the team undertook an upgrade that would help it to create and distribute content more quickly.

“Our audience wanted to see event highlights in as close to real time as possible, but we simply didn't have the infrastructure to meet that goal,” said Scott Rinehart, broadcast technology programme director at Fighting Irish Media. “The new StorNext-based collaborative workflow changed that, dramatically reducing the time it takes to post and deliver content. Projects that once took hours to complete are now finished and made available to fans in minutes. This means that people who attend a Notre Dame game can watch highlights as they walk back to their cars.”