• No more sending tapes via FedEx. Instead of sending tapes by courier, you’ll send data files over your corporate data network.
• No more costly satellite feeds. And no need to schedule people at both ends of a feed.
• No more guessing about what’s on a tape. Powerful metadata will show you. And you’ll browse the contents of a tape from the comfort of your own PC.
• No more limitations in archival access. You can have a clerk load a Betacam SP® tape on a VTR in the archive center—and see the video on your own PC screen.

This is not idle daydreaming. The Sony e-VTR offers all these benefits today. The e-VTR is your essential bridge from the technologies, methods, infrastructure and tape formats of today to the data-centric world of tomorrow.

The e-VTR consists of any Sony MPEG IMXTM studio deck outfitted with a plug-in kit that adds a Gigabit Ethernet port. When based on the Sony MSW-M2000 VTR or the MSW-M2100 player, the e-VTR accepts your half-inch SONY tapes from as far back as 1983 (including Betacam®, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam and Betacam SX® tapes). The e-VTR also works with the SDI infrastructure you have now, while preparing the way for the infrastructure you’ll need in the future.

Workflow Innovation: From pie-in-the-sky to here-and-now.
Since NAB 2002, Sony has been making a promise called “Workflow Innovation,” the third great wave of change in the production of moving images. Sony triggered the first wave in the 1970’s with the change from shooting TV news on 16mm film to shooting on videotape. Sony instigated the second wave in the 1990s with the change from analog video to digital/ Workflow Innovation is the third revolution. And Sony’s e-VTR is the essential bridge to Workflow Innovation for any organization that currently uses Sony half-inch VTRs.

Before Workflow Innovation
To appreciate how big this change can be, consider the example of a busy newsroom before Workflow Innovation. On a breaking news day there are literally hundreds of cassettes that move from hand-to-hand. Because they are physical assets rather than logical and catalogued files, they make an individual scene difficult to locate and difficult to retrieve. After Workflow Innovation, it’s a dramatically different scene.

In many ways, Sony’s e-VTR is a bridge. It’s a bridge from the world of Sony half-inch tape into the nonlinear world. It’s a bridge from SDI and synchronous video to asynchronous Ethernet file transfers. And it’s a bridge from the world of tape-based production to the coming world of Sony XDCAMTM professional optical disc-based production.

e-VTR essentials
The e-VTR is created by installing the Sony BKMW-E2000 kit into any of four compatible Sony MPEG IMX studio decks: the MSW-2000, MSW-A2000 and MSW-M2000 recorders and the MSW-M2100 player. The centerpiece of the kit is a plug-in board that enables the deck to become another node on your IP network. Other elements include a rear-panel Gigabit Ethernet port, an Ethernet cable, a front half-panel with NETWORK button, and e-VTR Manager software, which provides extensive remote control of the e-VTR from a Windows PC.

The e-VTR Manager software is a remarkable tool. It enables a producer at a PC in New York to log on to an e-VTR in Atlanta and see a listing of clips, complete with time code in/out points.

If the producer is interested in any clip, she simply clicks on it to open the e-Monitor Window. This presents low-bit-rate video, audio and time code, along with VTR transport control buttons for play, pause, picture search and slow motion.

After searching, the producer can create a new file by identifying time code In and Out points. In this way she can subdivide a clip or create a new file that combines one or more existing clips.

Let’s say the producer discovers a clip on the Atlanta e-VTR that she needs in New York. After selecting the file, she simply Drags and Drops the file from the playout machine to the target machine, initiating an MXF file transfer. While the transfer is underway, she sees a progress bar familiar to anyone who has ever downloaded from the Internet.

In this example, we’ve seen an MXF file transfer from one e-VTR to another. But that’s just the beginning. The e-VTR interoperates with a whole list of compatible Sony products.

MXF file transfers are not limited to exchanges between pairs of Sony products. MXF is an industry-standard file format, now finalizing rigorous standardization by SMPTE. Because it fills a vital role in program exchange, MXF is supported by a long list of industry leaders. Which means the future promises a broad range of products that will interoperate with the Sony e-VTR. e-VTR Potential Applications

Because it speeds content exchange, encourages collaboration and lowers cost, the Sony e-VTR is destined to have a far-reaching impact on every aspect of video production. Thanks to industry-standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP) commands, the e-VTR is open to software control from many vendors, including Sony. While we cannot foresee all the ways in which asset management and automation vendors may leverage the e-VTR, we can outline a few examples. The following nine applications include some that are supported now by Sony’s own e-VTR Manager software, and others that represent potential applications only. Certainly, that potential is vast.

1. e-VTR to e-VTR Content Transfer
As we’ve seen, a producer in New York can browse the contents of a videocassette in Atlanta, select Mark In and Mark Out points and send the selected clips to another e-VTR in New York. This is a powerful alternative to the cost of satellite feeds and the time delays of sending tapes by courier.

2. High-speed Ingest
Conventional audio/video infrastructure such as the Serial Digital Interface (SDI) operates exclusively and emphatically in real-time. This is the synchronous world in which the image integrity depends in bits arriving on schedule. In dramatic contrast, e-VTR file transfers are asynchronous. The system works whether or not the bits arrive in real time, slower that real time or faster. When the target device is a compatible server and when the network bandwidth permits, source e-VTRs in “Feed Mode” can speed file transfers at 2X real time. In this way, the e-VTR can save you valuable editing time-a crucial advantage in TV news, for example.

Unlike SDTI and QSDI faster-than-real-time connections, e-VTR file transfers can work whether the source and target machines are in different rooms, different offices or different continents.

3. File creation from Tele-FileTM label or tape essence marks
There’s a small but significant difference between audio/video clips on a tape and data files that can be transferred over data networks. The e-VTR Manager software quickly overcomes that difference. The Create File List command quickly converts every video clip into a data file, using essence marks either from the tape’s Tele-FileTM label or from the tape itself.

4. Simultaneous file transfer to servers or NLEs
In conventional, SDI infrastructure, there’s a one-to-one relationship between cables and signal-moving in just one direction. Data networking is fundamentally different. An individual Ethernet cable is designed from the outset to support multiple applications and multiple tasks.

For example, the Ethernet link between a central server and the nearest switch can support several simultaneous record and playback processes, limited only by the input/output capabilities of the server itself. These processes can start and stop on the fly, without the need to disconnect and reconnect signal cables or reassign SDI router crosspoints.

5. Backup recording behind synchronous operations
You can use the e-VTR to make backup recordings of live events. For example, a broadcaster may be covering a football game through a live server. The e-VTR can make a backup recording while gracefully enabling the server to about its primary task of covering the game. If the server becomes too busy, for example, the e-VTR can patiently “wait” for the remaining data packets. This waiting is only possible in the asynchronous environment of IT files transfers. As with other e-VTR applications, it doesn’t matter whether the e-VTR is sitting alongside the live server, in the next room, or in some distant location.

6. Select scenes while recording
In applications such as newsrooms, deadlines are often tight. So it can be a powerful advantage to be able to pick out shots while a live feed is still coming in. The e-VTR enables you to do exactly that. Even on a relatively low-speed network connection, you can view low bit-rate video, audio and time code in the e-Monitor Window of a PC screen. Think of this as a virtual E0toE video signal. The e-Monitor Window enables a producer to select shots, as if he were sitting alongside the VTR in the machine room. In this way, the producer can make notes and identify highlights for news reports, teases and bumpers.

7. Accessing archives
Repurposing your existing assets can mean extra revenue. But that potential revenue is completely tied to your ability to browse the assets conveniently, identify material correctly and move selected clips smoothly into production. The e-VTR can streamline this process. You don’t need to ingest thousands of analog tapes into data systems. You don’t need to remove valuable assets from the central archive just to find out what’s on them. And you don’t need to dub countless hours of material that may end up being useless.

Here’s a step-by-step look at how such an archival system can work.
A producer sits at his PC and enters REAGAN and SAN FRANCISCO into a keyword search. The search goes to the archive database and reruns the reel numbers of five Betacam SP archival tapes, which are sitting on shelves. The producer asks a clerk to load each tape. From the comfort of his own PC, the producer can Start, Stop, Fast Forward and Play a tape, viewing the results in the e-Monitor Window. At this point, he’s looking at low-resolution video, audio and time code, and he identifies the frame-accurate Mark-In and Mark-Out points of the clips he needs. He initiates MXF file transfer to move full-resolution versions of the selected footage from the e-VTR to an edit bay. In this scenario, the Betacam SP tapes never leave the archive. The producer’s PC never deals with full-bandwidth video. And the producer never leaves his desk.

8. Content Search via WAN
With the e-VTR, you no longer need to have the content on-hand before you can start editing. Software could potentially be created to search the contents of tapes mounted on multiple e-VTRs in multiple locations. In this scenario, you could use your PC to review picture and sound, see time code, and select Mark-In and Mark-Out points. In this way, you can remotely build a shot list. When you’re done with the shot list, you can transfer all the assets to a single VTR or server for assembly.

9. Remote Maintenance
If you’ve made a major investment in content creation equipment, you’ll see a better return on that investment when you can keep everything up and running efficiently. Remote maintenance empowers you to identify and resolve small problems before they become big. And in the event of trouble, remote maintenance enables you to respond faster and more precisely. You’ll enjoy higher reliability, higher uptime and lower Total Cost of Ownership. For these compelling reasons, Sony has devoted substantial engineering resources to bring you the benefits of remote maintenance.

Because the e-VTR card includes a built-in web-server, authorized users can so amazingly powerful remote monitoring using only a standard PC web browser such as Internet Explorer® or Netscape Navigator ®. In this way, engineers can check head hours, error logs and basic setup information. But that’s just the beginning.

The e-VTR card also includes a Management Information Base or MIB. This enables authorized users at remote PC’s to setup and configure e-VTRs using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Sony’s BZNW-5000 MMStationTM software makes it happen. In the event that machine conditions fall below thresholds. MMSStation software can automatically alert you via pop-up dialog box, email or pager.

MMStation software can monitor not only Sony’s recent SNMP-compliant products, but also the installed base of over 120,000 Sony VTRs, plus switchers, routers, BVM and PFM Series monitors that support Sony’s Interactive Status Reporting (ISRTM) system. This “ISR proxy” monitoring requires RS-232-to-Ethernet conversion, Ethernet connectivity and a server running Sony BZNW-1000 ISR Proxy software.

Conclusion
When the first customer took delivery of the first Betacam camcorder back in 1983, they probably never expected to review the tape over an IP network, identify vclips on a PC screen and transfer those clips as data files. But that’s the essence of the e-VTR. It’s a bridge from the familiar, linear, tape-based world to the non-linear, IT-based world of the future.

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