Rohde & Schwarz Press

Rohde & Schwarz has announced a major contract win with Russian broadcaster, Nika-TV, which serves the Kaluga region. The multi-award winning satellite TV and radio broadcaster has put the R&S VENICE server platform at the heart of all studio content ingest, production and channel playout workflows at its production headquarters in Kaluga city.

With the support of the local Russian Rohde & Schwarz team of engineers, Nika-TV was able to migrate all of its ingest and playout operations within one working day. At breakfast time, the broadcaster was still operating its obsolete servers; shortly after lunch the first trial runs on R&S VENICE were successfully completed and by evening, the entire broadcast operation was completely transferred to the new R&S VENICE servers.

Now, using the ultra-compact (2U) R&S VENICE video servers, Nika-TV has four channels for content ingest and a further four channels for channel playout, as well as feeding a large videowall in the main production studio. Using the R&S VENICE graphic user interface (GUI), Nika-TV was able to quickly and easily configure and establish all mission critical workflows within the studio complex.

R&S VENICE’s multi-format record and playback capabilities mean that Nika-TV can process virtually all incoming content irrespective of whether it was shot using an HD camcorder or a smartphone. Using the server’s built-in H.264 codec, engineers can take this content and optimize the picture quality and storage volume, whilst selecting the most appropriate bit-rate. Each server can store up to 6TB of data, so the studios have large capacity and ultra-fast storage facilities at their fingertips.

“Our selection of R&S VENICE was driven by the high quality and reliability of these video server systems,” commented Sergey Trubitsin, general director at Nika-TV. “With R&S VENICE, our programme producers have complete confidence that all material created in the studios is recorded and aired exactly as they wish.”

“Furthermore, R&S VENICE helps all of our staff to focus on the creative aspects of their roles. The servers can be accessed directly by any NLE within our network,” Andrey Gorchakov explains.

People are the main value Nika-TV’s range of TV channels and FM radio stations are broadcast across the entire Kaluga region of Russia. Thanks to the advantages of satellite broadcasting, Nika-TV is also available to viewers in many regions of Russia, Western and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the CIS.

Focussing on the needs of the regional viewer, Nika-TV channel content includes feature films (Russian and foreign), current affairs, entertainment and documentary programmes, many of which are produced in-house. As well as its broadcast channels, Nika-TV has a strong online presence – the broadcaster uses its website as a strategic communications platform keeping in touch with its viewing audience.

Nika-TV and its radio company has pioneered the adoption of new broadcast technologies: it has a modern complex of studio facilities. The broadcaster is pioneering the era of digital television and multi-platform content distribution in Russia.

System integrator EuroMedia-Service has integrated the RelayCaster live content IP contribution solution from Rohde & Schwarz subsidiary GMIT GmbH into the Skyline DataMiner network management platform. DataMiner is a solution for the broadcast, satellite, cable, telecommunications and mobile industries. RelayCaster provides reliable contribution and distribution of live content over unmanaged IP networks. Multiple RelayCasters can be automatically linked and managed in DataMiner with the RelayCaster link manager application. This saves time for the provider and enhances reliability for A/V content contribution and distribution, especially in the case of large networks.

RelayCaster achieves high transmission reliability by reducing packet losses to a minimum, providing the necessary quality of service (QoS) conditions for uninterrupted transmission. Optional encryption based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) provides end-to-end protection of the transmitted data streams. To enable optimal integration of RelayCaster in DataMiner, EuroMedia-Service developed a driver for RelayCaster that generates streams and monitors the RelayCaster streams.

DataMiner is a network management platform that offers extensive functionality and incorporates over 5000 drivers to interface with devices and systems from more than 600 major vendors. This makes it possible to monitor and visualise even very complex networks. The integration of RelayCaster delivers extremely efficient transmission over IP, reducing operating costs and improving service quality.