SYSTEMS AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY NEWS

KCET's tapeless broadcast

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:49

The largest independent US public television station, KCET, which serves southern and central California, has selected video servers and storage from SeaChange International for its new Burbank broadcast facility.

SeaChange will deploy at KCET a completely tapeless broadcast workflow solution based upon the SeaChange Media Architecture.

At the heart of KCET’s operation is the SeaChange Universal MediaLibrary (UML) storage system. The UML will be used as main storage (equipped with 1TB drives) and near-line storage (2TB drives) with a per “brick” capacity of up to 144TB. The SeaChange MediaGateway Mirroring Tool will mirror the contents of the main UML to the near-line archive. This enterprise-class UML storage server infrastructure features an industry-leading performance of 17Gbps throughput. It supports hybrid NAS and SAN connections, allowing KCET to access iSCSI, CIFS, NFS, and FTP files without reconfiguration or NAS gateways.

For ingest, quality check, and play-to-air, SeaChange will provide the MediaClient 8200 and MediaServer 1200. The MediaClient 8200 is a modular software codec that serves as a building block for play-to-air systems. It offers multi-resolution and multi-format operations with a high I/O density of up to 12 SD or 8 HD channels. The MediaServer 1200 is a standalone video server with the same features as the MediaClient, with built-in storage space of up to 16TB. Both the MediaClient and MediaServer will be controlled by KCET via the Pebble Beach Automation software and will have back up support by SeaChange’s MediaController Tool, an easy-to-use software application for performing simple ingest, playback, clip trimming and recording functions.

The SeaChange storage and server systems will be integrated seamlessly with the SeaChange Media Architecture based on open standards via 10GigE IP backbone. The SeaChange infrastructure interfaces freely with third-party applications like Pebble Beach.

“The Burbank station we are building is a very important milestone in the 47-year history of KCET,” said Gordon Bell, Senior Vice President for Engineering, Operations and IT, KCET. “We want to make sure that all operational requirements are met – redundancy for main and air protect playout, proxy files to allow review of the server’s content from desktops, and the ability to manage content in a file-based tapeless system. SeaChange technologies have all of these, and we have trusted their products for many years now.”

Stephane Jauroyou, Vice President for Worldwide Broadcast Sales, SeaChange, said, “We value KCET as a partner in the industry. It is an honor to deliver to this renowned station SeaChange’s market-leading broadcast technologies. As KCET expands its broadcast operations, we can support them every step of the way.”

SeaChange International’s Storage and Server group develops and supports IP-based broadcast workflows for hundreds of broadcasters, content providers, and media companies globally with thousands of HD, SD, and 3D channels on air today. Its extensive product line includes media servers, storage solutions, and applications for multi-screen publishing, monetisation, and delivery.

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