HBO Taps Wazee Digital to Archive ‘Endangered’ Videotape Formats

Wazee Digital, a Denver-based cloud video management company, said HBO is using its “Core” software-as-a-service platform to digitize and archive sports content that is currently stored in “endangered” videotape formats.

In addition to preserving that deteriorating content in digital using AS-O2, the move will also provide an easy way for those assets to be searched and downloaded, they said.

Wazee Digital said Core handles complex tasks of video acquisition, workflow, universal access, metadata management and multiscreen delivery.

In the HBO use case, the system will preserve HBO’s analog and digital videotape formats using AS-02 MXF versioning, the company said, noting that credentialed internal HBO users and their authenticated partners can now log in to Core to search, explore and download from the HBP Sports archives.

"Many of HBO Sports' assets are on legacy tape formats that need to be migrated to digital because the physical formats are deteriorating, and the videotape machines that play them back are quickly becoming extinct," HBO VP Michael Castro said, in a statement. "HBO Sports now has access to its rich history of sports content digitally, unearthing what has long been dormant, sitting on a shelf. Through Wazee Digital, we are rediscovering these historic moments and making them available for future use."

“With Core, HBO now has a progressive solution that allows them to archive, manage, research, view, download, and share sports content that otherwise may have languished on shelves in tape format," added Harris Morris, chairman and CEO of Wazee Digital. "The support of AS-02 archive format using JPEG 2000 is the first of its kind for a cloud-native asset management platform. This strategy will help HBO Sports bring its rich history of sports content back to life, while making it searchable, discoverable, and monetizable once again."