17 January 2007
Bangladeshi broadcaster Channel S Television has struck a deal with leading content management and delivery company GlobeCast to deliver three of its channels – Channel S, Channel S World and Channel S Plus – to the Sky platform using GlobeCasts capacity on the Eurobird satellite.
The broadcasters flagship station Channel S Television is the fastest growing free-to-view Asian television channel in the UK. It is the only free-to-view broadcast tailored specifically for the UK’s growing, Sylheti-speaking Bangladeshi community.
The multichannel offering including Channel S World and Channel S Plus, broadcasts 24 hours a day free-to-air. The multi-channel offering aims to inform, entertain and educate British Bengalis and British Asians in the United Kingdom and Ireland. As such, programmes are bilingual in English and Sylheti and cover themes of interest for all British Asians. The channels feature both traditional and progressive content in their line ups of talk shows, kids shows, documentaries, current affairs and news programmes.
GlobeCasts tailored solution for the three channels includes fibre connectivity from the broadcasters studios in Walthamstow to GlobeCasts London Technical Operations Centre, where the signals are uplinked to the Sky Digital platform via the Eurobird satellite at 28.5ºE.
The Channel-S offering will join the over 50 video channels and 11 radio channels which GlobeCast delivers to the platform, including major television broadcasters such as EuroNews, Abu Dhabi TV, Extreme Sports, CCTV 9, Audi TV and others.
17 January 2007
As of 2007, Arabic will be the 29th language in which the international all-music MTV television will broadcast its musical repertoire. The Dubai-based al-Arabiya Television network has just signed an accord with MTV Networks International to launch MTV Arabiya in 2007.The announcement of an Arabic channel had been made last summer but MTV reportedly lacked a local partner until now.
The new MTV Arabiya, a free-to-air channel, will broadcast 24 hours a day entertainment and music programmes for young viewers in the Middle East – a significant audience considering that approximately half of the area’s population is under 25.
Producers in Dubai have said that the channel will also broadcast local programmes. The network should be launched in the second half of 2007 and will challenge two Middle Eastern music and entertainment giants – Rotana TV and Melody Music.
17 January 2007
Daystar Television Network, the fastest growing, second largest Christian television network in the world, has selected a Quantel sQ HD/SD integrated production system for its 24-hour program production. Daystar operates more than 50 television stations in the major U.S. markets with production facilities in Dallas, Houston, Denver and Kentucky. It has a potential audience of 128 million viewers in the United States alone and can be seen over 200 countries.
The new sQ system will be housed in the networks Dallas headquarters and supports six sQ Cut, six sQ Edit desktop editing applications and three eQ multi-resolution editing, effects, color correction and deliverables systems.
Daystar chose the Quantel system after a three year evaluation process of all the available systems on the market. Quantels Regional Sales Manager, David Black, said, Quantel and Daystar worked very hard to dramatically increase their workflow production and ability to more quickly get product to air.
The new sQ server will replace the networks tape-based production workflow. Currently the network has been editing on Final Cut Pro and mastering to tape. Daystar plans on using the sQ system primarily as a production editing and storage server with occasional use for production playout. The network plans to go live with the system May 1, 2007.
The Quantel sQ system will benefit Daystars production operation in several areas. The networks primary production, Celebration, is live four days a week, and re-airs in two different timeslots daily. The workflow for Celebration is very much like a newscast, with support footage arriving sometimes minutes to air. The sQ system will give the production team a newsroom workflow while maintaining a high-quality signal path that can handle multiple resolutions and file formats with ease.
Joni is the networks talk show and is completely post produced. The graphical content and template approach to the shows format conforms tightly into the Quantel workflow. The time in post will be significantly reduced, allowing more creativity and scheduling flexibility. Some of the stations EFP for this program is HD, so the eQs seamless multi-resolution operation options are critical.
After an in-depth research process, we chose the Quantel sQ server and associated editors to provide us with the most efficient, high-quality solution to our workflow issues, said Leland Johnson, Daystar systems developer. Specifically, Quantels FrameMagic file management became the primary factor in our decision, as it presented a very cost-effective storage and archive model that fit what we wanted to accomplish.
17 January 2007
Stand No: Autocue will be represented by UBMS on stand: E1-11/D1-11
Autocue, a leading provider of newsroom automation and teleprompting solutions, is showcasing a number of new and existing products at CABSAT 2007 on the UBMS stand; Autocues new partner in the Middle East.
* QNxt: Making its debut in the Middle East, Autocue launches the first IP-based, networked prompting system. The prompting application on the PC connects to a hardware component – the QBox – over an Ethernet link, which can be wired or wireless. This means that the QBox can be controlled locally, or remotely, by the PC over an unlimited distance. In this way, QNxt moves the level of intelligence away from the central control system, and out to the prompter itself, unlocking a host of benefits for the end user, both in the studio and in the field.
Also on display:
Master and Professional Series Prompters: The Master Series is designed to meet the demanding real-time requirements of the top-end broadcast studios. Autocue boasts three unique products in this range: the smallest and largest daylight-readable prompters in the world, and the only top-mounted prompter. The Professional Series is an affordable range of prompters designed for the emerging or non-traditional broadcast markets, including smaller stations, corporate, religious and educational broadcasters.
QSmart: Designed to provide a robust and expandable solution to meet the specific NRCS requirements of smaller market and non-traditional broadcasters. It is priced to match the budget of even the smallest news operation yet provides an enormous range of functionality already proven in much larger organisations around the world.
17 January 2007
Harris Corporation, an international communications and information technology company, will now feature expanded Material Exchange Format (MXF) support in products from its Broadcast Communications Division via a software development kit from the leader in MXF interchange, MOG Solutions. Harris has purchased a group license for the MOG Solutions MXFComponentSuite, which will enable many Harris products to have faster MXF compatibility through unified and optimized workflows. The first Harris product line to incorporate the MOG MXFComponentSuite technology is the family of NEXIO high-definition/standard-definition (HD/SD) video servers.
The MXFComponentSuite is a set of MXF-enabled components that abstract the application layer from the details and complexity of the MXF format using simple application programming interfaces. Enabling high-performance transfers of pictures, audio, metadata and the like across a file-based system, this MXF interchange toolkit will minimize file inconsistencies and provide Harris® NEXIO server users with a reliable and simple means of handling both SD and HD MXF files.
“The NEXIO platform is one of the leading servers on the market today, and we are delighted to work with Harris to implement our software development kit to enhance the MXF interchange capabilities of their expansive, worldwide server client base,” said Vitor Teixeira, vice president of product development and sales, MOG Solutions. “Our MXFComponentSuite combines the best technologies and standards of broadcasting and IT worlds in one unit.”
“This MXF interchange toolkit will provide our NEXIO customers with a ‘media wrapper’ that improves workflow by enabling our servers to better interface with third-party equipment,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president of the Harris Broadcast Communications Division. “Working with MOG Solutions allows us to draw on their skills as leaders in developing MXF-compliant technologies, and enables us to focus on our core competencies the development of enterprise-class, server-based shared storage solutions.”
NEXIO is a scalable, interoperable server foundation. It is a highly integrated family of products that employs open standards to greatly accelerate time-to-air and dramatically reduce the costs associated with content acquisition, production, distribution and media management today and for the long term. As a replacement for videotape recorders, NEXIO servers provide real-time I/O, network interfaces, ingest, playout and FTP capabilities all within a single chassis. The newest sub-brand in the family is NEXIO XS, a line of HD/SD transmission servers featuring integrated, software-based codec technology and software-driven up-, down- and cross-conversion to provide the ultimate in reliability, scalability and format flexibility.
