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Dr Who Goes Tapeless

David Tennant, starring as the Doctor in Series 2BBC Wales has invested £500,000 in tapeless workflow technology for post-production work. The Cardiff-based regional BBC production centre has made huge impact on the corporation's drama outpact, with top audience ratings for the recent Doctor Who series, very shortly to go out on US cable and with further series in the pipeline.

The new Unity ISIS media network storage system that has nbeen installed is expected to allow large numbers of people  to browse, edit and manage media files from their editing system or computer.

David Tennant and Billie Piper beside the Tardis

All files will be digitised and stored centrally, so footage can be ingested as soon as it is shot. Programmes can then be directly played out from the system to air. It is not yet confirmed whether the third series of Doctor Who - which starts shooting in July - will be filmed in SD or HD, although it's widely believed that a tapeless workflow would lend itself to HD aquisition.

The second series of Dr Who is shooting now, starring David Tennant and Billie Piper. This new development will come on stream for the 3rd series shooting this summer in parallel with Torchwood, a Dr Who spinoff series starring John Barrowman and Eve Myles - due for transmission in 2007.

by James MacGregor

Published 17 March 2006