Tape Ark partners with Google Cloud to digitise sports broadcasts

Tape Ark has announced a significant partnership with Google Cloud to digitise one of the largest tape-based sports broadcast video collections to keep pace with the rise of on-demand streaming. The move marks a critical stride in preserving historical sports archives and bringing them to the fingertips of a global audience. These developments herald an exciting era for enhanced sports broadcasting experience, predicted to grant fans unparalleled access to historical footage while providing further monetisation avenues for broadcasters.

Having accomplished this initiative for one of the world's largest sports broadcasters, Tape Ark is poised to tackle projects of equal magnitude for several other substantial sports collections. The transformation of these extensive content collections, which have so far languished in tape form, perfectly leverages Google Cloud's video-on-demand (VOD) streaming technology. This solution offers broadcasters the chance to profit from previously idle content and capitalise on advanced AI and ML technologies for new analyses and predictions.

Once entirely migrated to Google Cloud, the collective video content will span over 40Pb. Aside from the exciting prospect of monetising such vast collections, their liberation from tape storage will eradicate the need for a sizeable array of on-premise rigs and their attendant maintenance and overhead costs. This efficiency is geared to be a game-changer for the broadcaster, promising cost savings in terms of reduced maintenance expenditure and markedly improved content availability.

Such swift and vast access to historical sports data will delight fans, offering them a comprehensive retrospective of their beloved sports. It also paves the way for futuristic sports broadcasting technology. Guy Holmes, Founder and CEO of Tape Ark, noted that idle content is an untapped asset that should be transitioned to cloud storage for complete utility. Holmes asserts that the relevance and potential of cloud migration extends beyond sports broadcasting, touching various other sectors.

Holmes said, "Content sitting idle on tape media is an asset that needs to be liberated to the cloud to take full advantage of the opportunities it presents. This is not only the case for sports content but also for news, health, research, weather, banking and insurance, to name just a few."

Over the past three years, Tape Ark has successfully transferred nearly one exabyte of content, an achievement that Holmes suggests is merely the tip of the iceberg. This pioneering initiative perfectly aligns with Tape Ark's chief objective of aiding companies in unchaining colossal quantities of historical data from tape backup, obviating the necessity of tape drives and the toils of managing physical tapes and offsite storage.

From its base in Australia, Tape Ark has evolved into one of the country's fastest-expanding companies. With mass ingest points in five countries and branches in the US, Canada, the UK, and India, the company continues to forge ahead in redefining data storage and management. In 2023, Deloitte recognised Tape Ark as one of the Fast50, a testament to its innovation and growth in the cloud computing landscape.