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ForumChannel in a Box NEWS INBRIEF
Snell CiaB integrates Quantum file
Snell has integrated Quantum’s StorNext File System along with StorNext Q-series Storage to power its ICE Channel in a Box, which provides broadcasters with a cost effective, reliable and scalable route to playout of anything from a single SD channel to multiple HD channels. Snell selected Quantum’s StorNext File System to provide customers with high- performance scale-out file sharing. In addition, Snell has integrated StorNext Q-Series storage arrays designed to meet the requirements of managing rich-media files, enabling users to store and manipulate data at very high rates. The integration with the Quantum products enables up to 10 ICE units to share 36TB of storage.
www.quantum.com
OBs compete for BBC Sport 2013 may have none of the major international sporting events that dominated last year’s calendar, but it is shaping up as a critical time for the UK’s leading outside broadcasters as dozens of key contracts come up for tender. These include the array of BBC Sport contracts held by SIS Live for five years since April 2008 when it acquired the broadcaster’s OB division for £19.3 million. Contracts include those for the London Marathon, Wimbledon, the RBS 6 Nations Rugby (for which SIS supplies trucks and crew for home and away matches), flagship BBC 1 Saturday night football programme Match of the Day, the Open golf championship and the Grand National. The entrance of BT Vision into the sports market also has OB firms competing for business. Its main contract is for three-year Premier League coverage (38 matches a year), which begins in autumn and which cost the telco £246 million (€303 million) per season.
www.bbc.com/sport
www.tvbeurope.com January 2013
The amazing shrinking MCR
By Don Ash, director, Sales PlayBox Technology
IT WAS not so long ago that a broadcaster’s Master Control Room (MCR) comprised rows and rows of tall racks, packed with costly professional high- tech heat-generating equipment that then needed more power to cool. This was in the heyday of dedicated hardware with each box doing its own thing: VTRs, mixers, stills stores, CG, logo generators, DSK, DAs and many more. These were connected via the video router and orchestrated by, perhaps the only bit of IT equipment, the automation system. Today’s MCRs are either much
smaller, running many more channels or have not yet moved into ‘file-based workflows’ — a glib phrase for a massive change in the broadcast industry that, broadly, implies a predominant use of IT-based hardware. Such huge changes generally go through two phases: the first delivers machines that are at least equal to the old-technology originals, and the second goes further, doing much more at a far lower cost. The broadcast TV industry would look very different today if such a change had not occurred, crushing the costs of making and delivering programmes, interstitials, promos, bumpers, stings, graphics, commercials — in fact everything we see on TV today.
Mission control Over 12 years ago PlayBox Technology set out on a mission to provide IT-based video playout replacing the existing VTR technology. Before the product even got to market it had taken on board all the other associated tasks such as playout
Box’ revolution that has meant broadcasters can do a whole lot more in just one box – and shrink the MCR. The hardware is all COTS, great value for money, with just a basic video I/O, if required. Everything else is software... and a network port. The effect on broadcasters
Don Ash: The second phase of the so-called ‘Channel in a Box’ revolution has meant broadcasters can do a whole lot more in just one box — and shrink the MCR
has worked its way up from the small and local channels that could not exist without the most cost-effective Channel in a Box playout, now to international broadcasters. The number one need for
the ‘box’ is reliability and then it has to be easy to use. However, many of us are used to running our own PCs, and many
yes and no, much as it is with our PCs. Broadcasters big and small
have dedicated technical staff, but if not, or they don’t want to, they can rely on the manufacturer for support. PlayBox Technology offers 24/7 monitoring and support and can monitor and link into customers’ equipment via the internet producing a quick fix. Other manifestations of the shrinking MCR are embodied in EdgeBox and AdBox. More and more tier 1 broadcasters now realise that they can deliver locally branded channels anywhere in the world remotely via IP at a cost to make any or all of their numerous channels viable from day one and
With cloud technology now entering the broadcast world, soon the MCR may disappear or else migrate to a remotely monitored and controlled data centre
automation, CG, graphics, stills store, logo, DSK, etc. Then it was an IT-island in a largely dedicated-hardware sea. The most used connections were SDI, or even PAL or NTSC, interfaced via an I/O card, but the network was there from the start, after all it was, and still is, a Windows PC. Fast-forward to now: hugely
more powerful operating systems and PCs. Many video connections are going out of style in favour of IP connectivity. Now a 1RU or 3RU PC box replaces several VTRs and that IT performance has been leveraged to do more, offering a very much expanded selection of ‘modules’ that are real alternatives for many of the boxes that used to warm the racks in the MCR. This is the second phase of the so-called ‘Channel in a
of us are not technicians, broadcast engineers or computer whiz kids. So does a broadcaster need
a permanent dedicated technical team to keep playout running, or rather keep the MCR running? Today the answer is
without the need to extend their MCR or create a new one. With cloud technology now entering the broadcast world, soon the MCR may disappear altogether or be migrated to a remotely monitored and controlled data centre.
The number one need for the ‘box’ is reliability
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