ZURICH, SWITZERLAND & LAS VEGAS, NV - 18 Apr 2007: FARO celebrates its premiere: Swiss television (SF) has launched its new multimedia compatible archive database. In collaboration with IBM (NYSE: IBM), SF replaced a nearly 20 year old legacy application with a modern content management system called FARO, which allows for digital video files.

Film data is still primarily available on classical video cassettes but in the coming years, SF will transfer its entire inventory to data files -- approximately 100,000 hours of film and video tapes that go back to the very beginning of Swiss television in the '50s.

"With FARO we have completely replaced our old metadata search system and have expanded important functions. So today we have a comprehensive shot search at our disposal, as well as a broad palette of search aids and a special sports search tool, which enables more efficient researching by journalists," said Sandra Figini, head of Film and Video Documentation at SF. "The introduction of FARO was a complete success, and we are receiving very positive feedback from our users." Furthermore, with the new Web application, the platform allows a simple access to the SF archive for future distribution -- such as the Internet or for mobile devices.

Together with SF, IBM and Supercomputing Systems AG (SCS) are planning video integration in phase two of FARO, whereby the new archiving system will be linked to all production islands. "Once FARO phase two is implemented, the journalists' burden will be greatly reduced," said Dieter Fahrni, SF spokesperson for the program producers in the project team.

"The editors can then select a picture sequence with the video preview and process it further into transmittable quality at any selected cutting point. The whole process of finding existing video material and reusing it will be simplified."

There will also be significant improvements for the long term handling of the archive. "Archive data is subject to periodic format changes. We now have the ability to carry out automatic migrations. The hitherto very high costs for maintaining the archive will be significantly reduced. FARO makes the work process more fluent, archive access more efficient, and the maintenance of our archive inventory simpler," said Fahrni.

E. Rudolf Vontobel, member of the management board of IBM Switzerland, said, "The quality of the archive material improves, while at the same time maintenance costs drop. Editors can find their material more easily and produce segments more quickly. And with this solution, personalized media input or collaboration with third parties will be easier to implement at a later stage."

For the new archive solution, IBM Global Business Services (GBS) has formed a development partnership with subcontractors Supercomputing Systems AG (SCS) from Zurich and Ardendo Software AB from Stockholm. The aim is to implement the newest IT technologies and to adapt them to SF's television business. The in-house development concentrates on the editorially significant areas such as front end and workflow and will be implemented by Supercomputing Systems AG.

The system builds on new, flexible and high-performing industry standard technologies. It employs IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, the IBM General Parallel File System Storage (GPFS) and the IBM System Storage TS3500 library with IBM System Storage TS1120 drives, for high capacity, fast access to data and long-term data retention. In the final development phase, SF plans capacities of 1,800 hours video (60 TB) on IBM disk storage, and 85,000 hours (2,800 TB) on IBM tape storage. The maintenance and the transport of the media content is carried out by IBM ADMIRA software, which was developed for the high demands on value retention and content maintenance of public broadcasters.

About Swiss television (SF)

Swiss television, SF, with its head office in Zurich, produces two programs on two channels (SF1 and SF2) and a repeat channel for information programs (SFi); furthermore, it is involved in the collaborative channel 3sat. SF is a company of SRG SSR idée suisse, which distributes radio and television programs for the various parts of the country, on the basis of a national concession. The broadcasting station in Zurich produces the program for the German speaking majority in Switzerland, and is the most important TV broadcaster in the country (2006, average market share of 34.5% of the daily average).

http://www.sf.tv/

About IBM Global Business Services (GBS)

With consultancy experts in over 160 countries, IBM Global Business Services (GBS) is the largest management consultancy in the world. IBM Global Business Services bundles consultancy and business process expertise with a comprehensive range of technology solutions, tailored to specific industry demands. IBM Global Business Services supports television broadcasters in the establishment of a sustainable digital infrastructure, with which they can pursue the opportunities of a converging media world in a more efficient and cost optimizing manner. In Europe, IBM GBS works in production and archiving projects for ARTE, BBC, RBB, RTl, SF and other broadcasters.

For information about IBM Global Business Services: www.ibm.ch/services

IBM press information and photos can also be found in the Internet pressroom under: www.ibm.ch/news

About Supercomputing Systems AG (SCS)

Founded 14 years ago, Supercomputing Systems AG (today with 50 employees) developed new products in the areas of high performance computing, industry and media companies. Supercomputing Systems AG thereby focussed on sophisticated computer systems. In industry, these are mainly control and computer platforms, as well as intelligent sensor systems; in the high performance computing sector, these are components for the building of supercomputers. In the area of database solutions for media companies, Supercomputing Systems AG provides customers with support, from the provision of expertise through to maintaining the system.

Another Content Management System to control the entire program production was developed in addition to FARO for Swiss television, and this is running successfully today on many hundred work stations. Other projects with many national and international customers have been implemented, with amongst others AGFA, HP, Siemens, Swiss Teletext AG and the Swiss national railways SBB.

For information about SCS: http://www.scs.ch

About Ardendo AB

Ardendo develops complete Media Asset Management solutions for the broadcasting industry. The company's success is due to its customer oriented company culture and its ability to implement engineering know-how correspondingly. Ardendo's customers are innovative television broadcasters who are looking for IT oriented solutions for complex problems.

For information about Ardendo: http://www.ardendo.com