NFL FILMS PRESENTATION David W. Franza VP, Executive in Charge Production Application Development & Support

Agenda Introduction & Some History (Ancient) The Vision and Need for Digital MAM at NFL Films Gaining Consensus and Funding - The Sell Job Building the MAM System at NFL Films – SABER The Evolution and Expansion of SABER Questions?

THE ART OF NFL FILMS “NFL Films is the most effective propaganda organ in the history of corporate America.” - Sports Illustrated “NFL Films produces great stuff. Someone’s got to keep track of it!” - me “Thanks to NFL Films, an entire mythology exists around the NFL and its stars. The greatest moments of its greatest years play and replay constantly, collapsing the distance between the past and present.” - USA Today

Keepers of the Flame The great George Halas actually bestowed that name upon NFL Films in the 1960s NFL Films was charged with preserving, protecting, and promoting football’s past, present, and especially the future Football is embedded in American Culture

Vision & Need for MAM at NFL Films Began researching digital video capture and playback from PCs in 1992 and experimenting with low-res playback from servers in 1993, In 1994 FOX signed their initial NFL Broadcast contract and the NFL agreed to provide them with a ”catalogue” of our football library for use by their research team. We had no such thing… We developed one – on a DEC VAX system, allowing our Media Services dept. to log plays using tape decks and indexing criteria we defined. This provided FOX, and subsequently Films Producers, invaluable data to research with. The success of the FOX endeavor, and the growing need for supplying NFL footage, which we license, to broadcast partners came together at a time when we were also developing a plan for providing our growing team of internal Producers with research footage online, at their desks, based on our recent experiments with PCs and network topologies. By 1995, we envisioned further growth of our facility, library and work force, as well as growing markets for our content. ARPANET and DSFNET both decommissioned and the Internet was commercialized.

Gaining Consensus & Funding – The Sell Job After developing a requirements specification for a MAM system, we researched some systems being developed (most were “prototypes”), as well as partnering with another company to develop something. Decided that nothing available met our needs –provide logging, storage, research, playback of full-motion compressed digital video to simultaneous users in two local buildings We had the technical and software development expertise to create a proprietary archiving and retrieval system –IT and Digital Video technologies were converging and we had both knowledge bases under one roof, so to speak We could develop the exact MAMs we wanted, would own the code, and could modify and upgrade it as we needed to, going forward Cheaper to develop and own rather than buy someone else’s system We would be able to research and SELL more video to partners and clients We could find and use shots never before seen in our programming

Building the MAMs at NFL Films - SABER Developed User Specification with input from Media Services & Producers Early in 1995 hired a network analyst to begin building network architecture In December 1995 hired a software developer to begin writing code Planned Phase I implementation for 1996 NFL season, including - Logging of all plays, using set of 152 “NFL Films logging criteria” - Search plays utilizing logged metadata - Display representative still photos, and build EDL for viewing and batch digitizing from tape -Tested during Summer, 1996 and implemented in September, 1996 Planned Phase II implementation for 1997 NFL Season including Phase I + - Playback of low res video at Producer desk tops - Building of custom shot lists (EDLs) and “Projects” for import to Avid and batch digitizing from tape - Log one NFL season going backwards, each “off-season”

Building the MAMs at NFL Films – SABER Technologies Used - Powerbuilder,.NET - SQL - Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7 - Custom built PCs, eventually DELL and IBM, Mac and MacBook Pro - Custom built Raid-5 video servers, eventually NetApps and XSAN - MPEG1, MPEG2, and then MPEG4,.wmv,.mov -1mbps, 2.5mbps, 4mbps depending on application - 1,000,000+ linear feet of Ethernet cable and Fiber throughout facility. Multi-mode & single-mode fiber backbone. category 6E copper to all work spaces - Cisco 10G switches and routers in Data Centers & IDFs - 10G Level 3 backbone between Mt. Laurel, NJ and Culver City, CA.

SABER Supports Content Requests from Clients Clients Using NFL Films Content NFL Films Producers NFL Office NFL Broadcast Partners NFL Network NFL. com NFL Sunday Ticket NFL Officiating NFL Instant Replay 32 NFL Teams Team video directors NFL Marketing NFL PR department Team PR departments Internet distributors (iTunes, HULU) Hall of Fame Super Bowl world feed Verizon

Footage Acquisition & SABER Content NFL Films NFL Films – HD film, tape and cards from games – Game footage from NFL seasons is stored digitally and may be searched and retrieved for playback by over 300 simultaneous Users on both coasts Network Broadcast Network Broadcast – Game broadcast records from stadiums, at NFL Films Team Video Team Video – Shot by teams on HD cameras, distributed by CGE System

The Evolution & Expansion of SABER First Phase, Local encode of NFL Films game footage (film transferred to Digi-Beta) MPEG1 files at 1-2mbps bit rate Each play viewed from tape decks or servers & logged using 152 menu driven criteria, as well as textual comments (10 Logging stations) Indexed content stored on homemade Raid-5 NAS servers 35 Ethernet attached Producer “clients” with search & playback Ability to build EDL (play lists) for batch digitizing from tape into Avids Second Phase, Enterprise, XML scripted encoding and delivery system (Anystream) – NFL Films game footage (film transferred to DVC-Pro,P2 cards, etc.) – NFL team video (All-22 scouting) – Broadcast game records – iTunes formatted highlights created and delivered on game days MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4,.wmv,.mov files at 1-4 mbps Indexed content stored on NAS and XSAN storage on both coasts

The Evolution & Expansion of SABER Second Phase, (cont’d) 300 Ethernet attached clients with search & playback on both coasts Ability to build EDL lists and import directly into Avid or FC-Pro Integration with Avid Unity Media Manager Ability to pull DV25 editable off-line footage from production servers into edit systems using EDL from SABER 5 seasons of low-res and 3 high-res footage stored online – Older seasons can be digitized from digital tape library Logging and search interfaces coded in.net – Loggers upgraded to MacPro systems “Remote SABER” developed for PC and Mac laptop Users NFL GSIS game stats, play marks, and “player participation” stats applied to game footage – Search of footage by GSIS stats added – Search of All-22 footage by NFL “player participation” stats added Addition of code to use “coaches clicker” remote for fwd/bwd viewing Interview transcripts added for search and retrieval by subject/content 75TB online

The Evolution & Expansion of SABER Third Phase, 2013-???? Integration with new Avid Interplay system for all off-line edits Integration with online HD ProRes broadcast quality video – 3 seasons online – Avid and FC-Pro editing systems Tapeless, file-based system integration Integrated with LTO long-term and backup storage Integrated with Films new Content Licensing Management System – Include shows and segments for viewing and research – 3 rd party stills and video usage tracked and reported via XML – Research and viewing of licensed stills and video available online Tablet and smart phone app & support