36 TVBEurope Forum Channel in a Box
Getting even more out of the box
Philip Stevens moderates this month’s Forum that looks at Channel in a Box, a topic that continues to exercise broadcaster’s minds
LAST YEAR’S Channel in a Box (CiaB) Forum produced diverse and interesting observations. Unsurprisingly, the subject continues to generate interest within the industry. So we gathered together some of those involved with the technology to see what difference a year has made. They are (in alphabetical order) Don Ash, managing partner and director, sales at Playbox Technology; Ed Calverley, VP product engineering, Oasys Automated Playout; Tom Gittins, director of sales, Pebble Beach Systems; Ofer Lugasi, Blend product manager, Orad Hi Tec
Channel in a Box technology is ever evolving. What has been the most innovative advance over the past 12 to 18 months?
Ash: Business wise, reaching more Tier 1 broadcasters than ever before. Most didn’t even acknowledge that CiaB existed one to two years ago. Calverley: The issue now is
how much further can we push the resources of a single box? Oasys has found a way to not only enhance channel count without increasing the hardware needed, but also to provide additional services such as simulcast, delayed and alternative content outlets. Managing this ever increasing complexity has been a challenge,
both technically and commercially. We believe that Chameleon, the integrated solution we launched at IBC, is a big step forward in addressing this challenge. Gittins: Virtualisation is a hot topic and several vendors, including Pebble Beach Systems, are engaged in developing solutions in this space. However, one interesting advance is the pre- rendering of complex graphics. Our new Marlin automated pre- render workflow addresses this, acting as a plug-in to Adobe After Effects and taking the
Systems; Karl Mehring, Snell’s senior product manager; Scott Rose, director of product management, Miranda Technologies; Mat Shell, product marketing manager at Harris; Bruce Straight, director sales and marketing at ToolsOnAir; Sander ten Dam, senior director media playout solutions, Grass Valley; Andy Warman, senior product marketing manager for Harmonic; Jan Weigner, CTO and managing director, Cinegy GmbH; Nick Wright, CTO and co-founder of Pixel Power, and Goce Zdravkoski, managing director, Stryme.
Don Ash, Playbox: “Most (broadcasters) didn’t even acknowledge CiaB existed one or two years ago”
‘heavy lifting’ of graphics out of the CiaB box. By managing the generation of 3D graphics in advance and then reinserting them into the playlist as a clip, Marlin avoids the potential for
integrated channel devices to be overloaded during playout. Mehring: New innovations have provided many
opportunities to include an ever increasing level of functionality
into software solutions, including features such as Dolby, loudness correction, viewer measurement, to name a few. Increased performance in IT equipment and connectivity offer greater power for these platforms, as well as the opportunity to stream using H.264 or AVC Intra for use in more advanced systems. Rose: Although the best systems have already added graphics, multi-format playback, advanced audio handling and other features, the last 12 months have seen a new focus to bring those key missing components of the channel chain into solutions. Miranda identified that subtitling and captioning are critical components for a significant segment of the market. We acquired Softel and introduced its technology into our portfolio. What is now the Miranda Softel Swift TX subtitle/caption management and delivery solution is a perfect fit with our iTX integrated playout platform. Shell: The innovation for CiaB products over the last 18 months has been in two areas. First, the evolution to enterprise-quality automation and workflow tools. Secondly, the maturation of graphics features, plus integration with graphics presentation toolsets. Moving forward the CiaB I/O solution of choice is going to be IP with baseband over IP. The solutions will tend to be software only and positioned for virtualisation and the cloud.
www.tvbeurope.com January 2014
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