Blue Ridge Public Television stations in Marion, Roanoake and Norton, Va., will begin using Broadcast MediaCluster (BMC) digital media server systems from SeaChange International later this year.

The system will store over 8,200 hours (at 8Mbps) of television content ready for immediate playback on-air.

Blue Ridge Public Television's BMC will be the largest media server of its kind in the United States. The station previously relied on mechanical archives and will now transition its material onto the standalone Broadcast MediaCluster.

"SeaChange's large capacity servers will help us reach our goal of building a hands-free television operation," said Jack Neal, president and general manager of Blue Ridge Public Television. "We selected the Broadcast MediaCluster not only because it handles all of our content right now, but for its ability to easily grow."

SeaChange's partner, The Whitlock Group, provided system integration for the project. The division's Digital Transition Team works with broadcasters to shift TV stations from analog to high definition digital television (HDTV).

Through its Broadcast MediaCluster deployments in PBS affiliates, SeaChange provides video storage and delivery for a range of broadcast models.

Products in SeaChange's BMC family are comprised of "server nodes," which leverage SeaChange's patented RAID2 architecture to scale in storage and I/O capacity, while providing the only single copy, fault-resilient media server in the broadcast market.

The Broadcast MediaCluster 1630 series utilizes 16 disk drives (36, 72 or 180GB) per node with up to 56 I/Os in a seven-node Broadcast MediaCluster. Total storage on a seven-node Broadcast MediaCluster 1630 series is 28TB, or almost a full year (8,200 hours) of storage (at 8Mbps) using 180GB disk drives and expansion chassis.

Editor's note: Mark writes for dc.internet.com, an internet.com site.