ITV Productions: In With the New
When ITV Productions opted to replace some of the proprietary editing suites at its post-production facility at ITV Yorkshire in Leeds — home to flagship drama series Heartbeat and The Royal — it installed a state-of-the-art digital solution based around Apple’s Final Cut Studio and Xsan.
For more than 50 years, ITV Productions — the in-house production arm of ITV plc — has created some of the UK’s most-watched and best-loved television programmes, many of which were produced at the ITV Yorkshire facility in Leeds. The facility has a special place in the history of broadcasting. In 1968, when it was built by the then Yorkshire Television, it was the first purpose-built colour TV facility in Europe; and today, ITV Productions proudly continues that tradition of technological trailblazing.
In 2006, the company installed a state-of-the-art post-production environment based around five Final Cut Pro cutting rooms linked via an Xsan storage area network. “When we installed the Apple suites, we had well over 200 closed-architecture systems across the company”, comments ITV’s director of production technology, Mark Chaplin, “so opting for Apple was breaking the mould”.
As a contractor in the ITV network, ITV Yorkshire forms part of the most watched commercial television channel in the UK. Among Yorkshire’s best-known productions are Heartbeat and sister programme, The Royal. The Final Cut Pro setup at Leeds was installed specifically to cut these two music-based dramas set in the 1960s.
“We tested the Apple system over a period of time”, explains offline editor Gary Westmoreland. “As an initial experiment, we cut an actual episode of Heartbeat using Final Cut Pro, which went through the usual post-production cycle and was eventually transmitted. I think the schedule slipped by a day, which considering I was on a steep learning curve, was pretty impressive”.
Several more episodes were cut using Final Cut Pro, then ITV Productions took the plunge. Andrew Brearley, ITV Productions’ technical manager, post production North, says: “Once we realised it was equal to, or out-stripping, the previous system in terms of features and performance, we went for it”.
Four Final Cut Pro suites were purchased directly from Apple, and installed by Apple Solution Experts, XTFX. These, along with the initial test suite, were linked to an Xsan with a 12.5TB storage capacity. Westmoreland explains: “Having everything linked up via the Xsan has been fantastic, as the suites we used previously were very stand-alone. It’s speeded things up and we can access things — like sound FX — far more quickly. Being able to have more than one project open at the same time is something we weren’t able to do before”.