32 TVBEurope The Workflow


www.tvbeurope.com August 2013


“Originally the system was widely adopted by the financial community” – Phil Crawley, root6


Amulet protects FIC


Fox International Channels re-versions National Geographic and Fox material for Sky and Virgin in the UK. The need for file-based access between post production and the ad sales team led to integrator root6 getting involved. root6 chose Hotkey from Amulet. David Stewart finds out more about the KVM extension


significant technologies that the company has engaged with in recent years. “Originally the system was widely adopted by the financial community,” explains Crawley. “It enables users to access multiple systems from a single interface over a network connection without operators and, more importantly, the OS/application, being aware it is being used from afar. When we first saw it, the advantages for our market were apparent.” As the FIC facility was already


Cat 5 enabled it was a relatively simple task to install the Amulet network for shared resources. The user sees a list of all connected devices — Avid Media Composer or ContentAgent automated file- based management, for example — and can switch between them, taking control with a single keyboard and monitoring system. “Amulet allows us to grow our technical resources and


Operators can now spot check files, organise file traffic and instigate transcodes


FOX INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS (FIC) UK, based in Shepherds Bush, re-versions National Geographic and Fox material, creates ads and promos, and prepares programmes for transmission and on-demand viewing for Sky and Virgin in the UK, with a further four channels for Africa. Although tape still plays a reduced role in the acquisition and delivery of material for broadcast, the internal post production process at FIC is exclusively file-based. Consequently the two networks


at FIC’s Shepherds Bush facility — the office management and post production systems — face increasing demands by users to access file-based content. Simon Brett, director of


Operations and Technical Facilities, takes up the story. “The need for increased file- based access presented a challenge. We wanted our traffic team to be able to use the post production system which would have required an additional high spec PC loaded with the necessary fibre and network cards, but we simply didn’t have


the desk space for that and the associated monitoring. “We approached root6 with the challenge and they introduced us to Amulet HotKey which they had already successfully deployed in a number of facilities. Initially it looks like a conventional KVM extension that enables the CPU to be removed from the suite and located elsewhere, but in reality it’s a great deal more than just a point-to-point solution.” Phil Crawley, head of Systems


Integration at root6, maintains that Amulet is one of the most


The internal post production process at FIC is exclusively file-based


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