January 2013
www.tvbeurope.com
A lot of vendors are jumping on the Channel in a Box bandwagon
Put your tools back in the box
A battle-proven graphics engine inside the box is just as important as one that’s outside. Scott Rose, Sr product manager, iTX Playout, Miranda Technologies
CHANNEL INa Box has rapidly become an industry term for reducing the sprawling chains of transmission equipment traditionally associated with playing out a channel. However not all solutions are equal, or indeed in a box! Integrated systems came into being to solve the most serious and pervasive challenge that broadcasters face in the market today. As advertising revenues spread between growing
Not all graphics need to be rendered in realtime, live at the point of playout
Miranda has put the functions typically associated with external boxes back into a single, tightly integrated system
numbers of channels and steadily migrate to new platforms, broadcasters in Europe and beyond have had a dual focus on making playout systems deliver more, and do so more efficiently. It was expected that reductions
in physical footprint, reduced power consumption, fewer components and less vendor finger-pointing would be key benefits of integration, as has been witnessed in parallel industries. Some solutions do deliver on these promises, but there are larger issues in play that can, if resolved, deliver far more in terms of real, tangible benefits. In a vast, multichannel
world, branding is key to ensure viewer retention. Branding has to be highly flexible (in channel, cross-channel, and even cross-platform promotion) but also easy to use. It’s pointless to add powerful capabilities if they’re too complex and costly to operate. That’s where entirely new models are needed, enabled by integrated playout. A number of vendors have added realtime character generators to their ‘in a Box’ offerings, but on-air graphics are a specialist area and
broadcasters are right to demand the same quality and capability of graphics from a CiaB solution as they would from more traditional stand-alone graphics solutions. In short, a trusted battle-proven graphics engine inside the box is just as important as one that’s outside.
Integrated thinking Not all graphics need to be rendered in realtime, live at the point of playout, so why do some
adopted graphics solution like Adobe After Effects. This approach is
the foundation for a new generation of graphics solutions from Miranda that are only possible because of integrated
thinking.Then there is asset management, which has become almost as much a catch-all phrase as Channel in a Box but is nevertheless a critical function, not an optional extra. Asset management workflows have to be designed into a system from the ground up. A system that requires access to the CiaB to see the media is time consuming and risky. Moreover,
has the added benefits of simplifying the operation and offering the ready scalability of the playout operation? We think that’s a logical
approach, not least because CiaB systems are not all truly integrated. A lot of vendors are jumping on the Channel in a Box bandwagon, but many of their solutions are actually based on legacy systems, which ultimately require lots of additional boxes. In short, it forces broadcasters to start bolting cards and other devices around the original box, which drives the channel right back out of the box again.
Not all graphics need to be rendered in realtime, live at the point of playout, so why do some broadcasters put full character generators in each channel?
broadcasters put full character generators in each channel? Why not have complex graphics capabilities available on every channel and eliminate the need for a proprietary authoring tool by rendering them in advance of transmission? If you take a fresh look at
graphics workflows you can see the benefits of tight integration between a playlist and a widely
why should you have to go into the playout control room to look at media when you could readily empower staff in other key areas to see the media, on demand, via their web browser? Why not enable them to
efficiently check incoming programming and commercials in their office environment and leave playout to get on with running the channels — which
This is just not sustainable within the cost models that most broadcast organisations need to operate in today. We’ve put the functions
typically associated with external boxes back into a single, tightly integrated system to ensure that users don’t have to run the financial and operational risks of figuring out what will, or won’t, work.
TVBEurope 25
ForumChannel in a Box NEWS INBRIEF
Sienna support for MassStore and Diva Sienna now provides fully integrated support for MassTech’s MassStore and Front Porch’s Diva archive systems. Sienna’s archiving capability uses disk based archives or stub file LTO archiving middleware such as Xendata, Sun SAM FS and Stornext Storage Manager. In both cases, Sienna provides native control of the third party archive system using socket or web services control. All the normal Sienna archiving facilities work, including automated archiving of delivered packages, or complete MOS bulletins, automatic restore-on-demand, and finally, partial restore using the Sienna web MAM to select the chosen segments from archived content.
www.sienna-tv.com
Tiffen offers Transvideo rentals in the UK
Tiffen International is now offering Transvideo on-camera picture monitors for hire. The business is being run by the London Filter Company, a part of Tiffen International, at Pinewood Studios. Tiffen has a long working relationship with Transvideo as its monitors are often included with Steadicam rigs. Terry Carey, MD, Tiffen International, commented, “We have been working with Transvideo for many years and this new rental business is a perfect fit with our Tiffen optical filter hire operation run by London Filter Company that is now with us at Pinewood. This, along with the connection through Steadicam, means we are already up to speed with the products and in daily contact with the right customers.”
www.thelondonfiltercompany.com www.tiffen.com www.transvideo.eu
Firmware upgrade TV One has announced a four input HD-SDI card in addition with a firmware upgrade for the C3-340, CORIOmatrix. It’s a Matrix Router that uses modular hardware with 16 AV module slots for I/O modules along with scaling output cards and soft signal switching. Also, in addition to having a CORIO2 scaling engine for individual up/down scaling, aspect ratio and frame rate conversion of each output, the CORIOmatrix offers DVI-U I/O modules. The new firmware upgrade 1.44 enhances the features of the CORIOmatrix from a Video Matrix to a complete Audio and Video Routing Scaling Matrix. The upgrade features an enhanced feature set, which allows the ability to route embedded HDMI and SDI signals separate from the Video Signals.
www.tvone.eu
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