The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) signed a contract with Siemens IT Solutions & Services at the beginning of April to oversee the roll out of digital technology solutions across the corporation.
The contract encompasses an agreement that will allow Siemens to oversee, project manage, consult and deploy the necessary technology for the roll out of a number of specific digital projects.
Priority areas are projects relating to infrastructure for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) including new Final Control Centres (FCC), playout and storage, infrastructure for supporting the SABC’s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and, archiving libraries enabling easy access to content material.
Siemens and the SABC, as the managing client, will work in close co-operation to get the best possible equipment for the projects. In some cases, the SABC will purchase the equipment, in others, Siemens will evaluate and buy the equipment on the SABC’s behalf from suppliers. "This will, in effect, allow us to choose the best possible systems available throughout the world," says Richard Waghorn, Chief Technology Officer at the SABC.
Read more in the May 2009 issue of Screen Africa
