Client : Sakaal Group

Project : Systems integrator for news and entertainment television station

Industry : Turnkey industry

Vendor : Benchmark Broadcast Systems, a KIT digital company

Details of the project : Benchmark Broadcast Systems, were selected by the Sakaal Group, a multilingual media house in Pune, Maharashtra, as the exclusive Systems Integrator for their first news and entertainment television station in Mumbai. Sakaal decided to award this project to Benchmark Broadcast Systems after an extensive evaluation done by Bhausaheb Patil, Director (Technology).

Scope of the Project

The 3,000 square metres (30,000 sq ft) station, located in Navi Mumbai, is a state-of-the-art, fully automated facility. The complete project included initial systems design, installation, integration, commissioning, training and maintenance. This included Aveco ASTRA automation workflow design and implementation, baseband design and implementation, OCTOPUS newsroom workflow design and implementation and editing and graphics workflow design and implementation. It also incorporated studio equipment identification, systems design, installation and integration, staff training and onsite, post-launch system support.

Overview

The entire news workflow is automated. News feeds are ingested automatically into the central Storage Area Network (SAN), where Benchmark has integrated a Datadirect solution. Under this workflow, at the time of ingest, a low-res copy is automatically made and sent to the low resolution server. The non-linear editing systems linked to the SAN pick up the video clips and start editing.

Journalists can see the low-res clip on their Octopus newsroom terminal and start writing their stories. Once the text story is ready, it is sent to the teleprompter. The news producer can control the prompter and, accordingly, the CG and the news can go on air. After that, the story is filed with the video, text, CG graphics, etc., all in one bundle. Regular programmes either go on air live, controlled through a production control room, or are pre-recorded and ingested into the video storage. If the latter, they are queued according to the playlist and played out automatically, as per schedule, through the automated video servers.

The entire TV station is at par with the latest in international technology and global standards. Redundancies and fail-safes have been built in at every stage, from mirrored storage to even the mirrored 300KVA uninterrupted power supply (UPS).

Ingest

Ingest is equipped with four Aveco ingest terminals to handle upto 18 live feeds and eight ingest ports. There are two network routers (analog audio and analog video) with two control panels and a waveform monitor for monitoring signals. Three VTRs are provided for tape ingest.

Production Control Rooms (PCRs)

The News PCR (NPCR) is equipped with vision and audio mixers as well as VTRs for tape playout. The NPCR has an Aveco Astra terminal, an Octopus application terminal, a Vizrt content pilot terminal and a teleprompter terminal. A wave rasteriser is used for monitoring SDI signals.

Master Control Room (MCR)

The MCR has an eyeheight console for switching and channel branding; an audio limiter and video legaliser for standardising the output signal; and a waveform monitor for monitoring the signal. The Aveco terminal has the final rundown (event browser). During the airing of live events the MCR gets the playout from the PCR and control is transferred to the PCR while it is on-air.

Central Equipment Room (CER)

The Central Equipment Room (CER) is where all the servers and systems are deployed - the video-servers, storage, Octopus system, Vizrt engines, Aveco server, main signal router, talkback system mainframe, off-air logger, sync-pulse generator, some of the glues, the GPS clock server, etc. As virtually everything is automatic, human intervention is at a minimum.

State-of-the-Art

The entire TV station is at par with the latest in international technology and global standards. Redundancies and fail-safes have been built in at every stage, from mirrored storage to even the mirrored 300KVA uninterrupted power supply (UPS). The Sakaal Group closely adheres to the Six Sigma Process for all its projects.