feature automation & asset management
Content owners can maximise their revenues
Feature sponsored by
by delivering their assets to a wider audience,
Harris.
especially attractive if it can be done at low
cost. The process can involve opening a new TV
channel remote from those that are already
showing the content, and this can be a generic
feed or presented with local branding. Don
Ash, director of sales at PlayBox Technology
Ltd, reports.
Remote playout via
the Internet
F
ulfilling the ‘locally branded’ system design is essential to tap into an channel playout protected with full
remote channel requirement existing broadcast centre. This may redundancy; there are also triple-
using traditional satellite or involve integrating the new remote redundant power supplies in each of
fibre video links can prove too playout into the current, or preferred, the AirBox playout servers. The
costly, particularly for smaller infrastructure such as traffic connection to each remote location is
audiences. An alternative is a management, storage, MAM, ingest, via a file transfer server and a firewall
solution built by PlayBox Technology in transcoding and file transfer systems - at each end, and can include a file
conjunction with FOX International as required by the customer. transfer system agent to speed up
Channels Italy, and nicknamed ‘FoxBox’. transfer times as well as using multiple
Don Ash, director of
This allows content owners to play
sales at PlayBox
Data transport, storage and Internet paths and so allowing checking
channels into any remote markets from Technology Ltd. protection the file validity. On the playout side, a
an established broadcast centre, Crystal Vision Smart Switch monitors
complete with locally branded content, The link from the content owner’s video and audio output from the main
in a cost-effective way. In the case of broadcast centre to the remote site AirBox playout server and, in the case
FOX, the requirement included carries the content media that is file- of failure, automatically switches to the
multilingual audio and subtitles as well based. This fits with the use of public backup.
as local advertising. Internet to serve as the only transport
The solution allows launching locally Diagram 1: a system to and from the remote site. It Workflow
branded channels throughout the world
single-channel
carries everything - the video, audio
via a tapeless operational environment.
playout protected
with full
and all other data including the playlists, Daily playlists are created in the
A flexible approach in both product and redundancy. subtitles, control commands and broadcast centre traffic system that is
monitoring. The operating costs are low integrated with the MAM. These lists
and the remote can be placed are then sent to the remote AirBox
anywhere that has Internet access. playout servers and converted, where
The choice of media format used at necessary, to the PlayBox Technology
the remote location depends on factors PLY playlist format. Using error
including the amount of new media per detection algorithms, every transferred
day, the bit rate chosen for playout and file is checked to match the original,
the available Internet capacity. MPEG2 and then sent to the remote AirBox
IBP at 10 Mb/s is popular, however playout servers. This way, if any file is
H.264 at 4 or 8Mb/s, or less, is a very corrupted during transfer it will not
good alternative. Ultimately it is the affect the output of both servers.
broadcaster’s decision. The PlayBox Remote Service
Various levels of protection can be Application (RSA) checks for the media
applied. Diagram 1 shows a single- required by the playlist and searches
28 l ibe l march/april 2009 l www.ibeweb.com
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48