Pioneer And Core Digital Capture U.S. Open Tennis Championship On DVD For CBS Sports

Multiple DVD-Recordable Drives and DVD Libraries Integrated into Mobile Production Unit for Digital Management of Two Week Television Broadcast

Pioneer Electronics (USA), Inc., Business Solutions Division, the leader in recordable DVD technology, and Core Digital Technologies, the digital mobile production experts, have created a high-tech, on-site digital mobile production unit for CBS Sports' television coverage of the U.S. Tennis Open Championships, August 27-September 9. The mobile production unit is managing CBS' broadcast of the tournament by capturing, storing, editing and retrieving live coverage plus integrating additional historical footage of past U.S. Open events, all from DVD-R recordable media, the DVD Forum approved recordable format for write once recordable DVD.

"A total of six Pioneer DVD-Recordable drives and two 720-disc DVD libraries have been integrated into Core Digital's production unit, which is simultaneously digitizing live feeds from all five courts daily and recording the data to DVD libraries for storage and access," said Mike Mickes, Senior Sales Manager, Business Development of, Pioneer Electronics (USA), Inc.. "This project is a perfect example of how recordable DVD-R is being incorporated into digital video business applications and we're very excited to be a part of the U.S. Open event."

The DVD libraries are integrated into Core Digital's "Clip Deck", a high-quality random access system containing the live and historical coverage in order to place tournament highlights or player features at the fingertips of the network for rapid access and editing.

"The technology behind Core Digital's DVD-based production unit provides the random access and efficient management of the event coverage we were looking for," said Ken Aagaard, vice president of operations and engineering, CBS Sports. "The DVD libraries can access coverage via the Clip Deck within seconds and provides reliable storage and unique features which make editing and production more effective than alternative methods."

"This is an exemplary use of cutting-edge digital technology within a broadcast application," said Jim Harrington, chief operating officer, Core Digital. "DVD allows for quick retrieval of archived video, easy editing of material and the capacity to store hundreds of hours of footage on discs for later use and reference."

The Core Digital mobile production team expects to edit, store and replay an estimated 800 hours of 2001 event coverage through the course of the tournament.

About Core Digital Technologies

Core Digital Technologies' three primary businesses include mobile production, asset management and Eyevision (a partnership with CBS and Princeton Video Imaging). The Mobile Production Division's principal service consists of providing the equipment and personnel necessary to produce a television broadcast signal to customers, who then transmit that signal for live or tape-delayed broadcast. Core provides mobile production services to television stations as well as national and international cable and broadcast networks. Core's Asset Management Division's role is to provide a complete, cost effective solution to digitally create, log, store, index, search and distribute valuable video and audio assets. The EyeVision technology is a breakthrough replay effect that debuted during this year's Super Bowl. It is based on a large number of cameras, all focused on the same subject. Switching from camera to camera makes the subject appear to rotate.