Sony renew Deutsche Welle's connected production with Hive

Basingstoke, 4 June 2019: In cooperation with Qvest Media, a worldwide leading system architect and ICT integrator, Sony is providing the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) with the news and media production system Media Backbone Hive. Thanks to integrating Sony’s Media Backbone Hive into the production centres in Berlin and Bonn, DW is gradually moving towards new, highly efficient production workflows. Due to its open API interfaces the system builds the centre piece of a future-oriented production platform which allows efficient, automated, and system wide workflows. Using Private Datacentres, the two Hive Digital Centre’s collectively enable approximately 1,000 journalists across the two locations to deliver news remotely in real-time.

Reaching audiences first

With audiences now consuming media directly online rather than through linear channels, flexibility is playing an increasingly important role for media producers needing to distribute content quickly and seamlessly. Rapid content delivery and easy production are key to the success of modern broadcasters and media companies. Serving as a new media asset management system (MAM) equipped with a web editor and Adobe Premiere, Sony's Hive is equipping DW for today’s fast-moving digital content landscape.

Boosting efficiency and reducing operational costs, Sony's powerful Media Backbone Hive eliminates the need to use multiple systems and valuable production resources. DW's journalists, editors and producers can now work closely together and collaborate via the data centre based platform which enables content to be recorded, edited, published and shared on any platform. Furthermore, Hive's powerful planning tools continually update DW's newsroom systems by linking metadata to news content, making material retrievable at various locations and allowing quick access to data stored during field assignments.

The scalable and award-winning solution reaches audiences more effectively and runs on standard IT hardware, benefitting media teams worldwide by offering more flexibility and efficiency across their production workflows. With Hive, not only can TV recordings be created and uploaded live, but also be used for online, social networks or other broadcast applications. DW will now use Hive for its entire AV production in the future.

“With Hive, our editors not only have more leeway in the way they produce their news, they can now also get to their final product faster,” says Thomas Schäfer, Project Manager at Deutsche Welle.“ The fact that the stories can now also be recorded via mobile phone or tablet is another particularly positive development for us.”

“We chose Sony's Media Backbone Hive because it covers our required functionality very well. Furthermore, its configuration capability allows us to implement the project with an agile project methodology,” adds Ulrich Voigt, Head of Design at Qvest Media. “This way, we can optimally introduce Hive together with the multi-cloud management platform Qvest. Cloud and integrate seamlessly with other products at Deutsche Welle. We are pleased to be able to implement this modern system integration with the help of Sony.”

Media Backbone Hive is part of Intelligent Media Services, Sony's portfolio of open technology and Services – allowing Sony’s customer to capture, manage and deliver content while adding value at every stage.

Stuart Almond, Head of Intelligent Media Services at Sony Professional Europe comments, “We are proud that Qvest Media chose our innovative Hive technology for DW and that together we are shaping the future of television production.” He adds, “Hive seamlessly meets today’s digital trends and can be configured as required. Sony Professional is therefore a suitable partner for large and small production companies.”