SAN FRANCISCO -- June 29, 2010 -- Wohler Technologies today announced that premium movie service provider Starz Entertainment, LLC is using the Touch-It(TM) Digital 16-channel video color monitor daily at its Englewood, Colo. facility to allow engineers to see precisely how video looks during server playout. Installed on the facility's new server racks, six 3-RU Touch-It Digital units provide side-by-side 7-inch widescreen color LCDs to enable cost-effective real-time monitoring and routing of multirate HD/SD-SDI video. The systems' SD/HD auto-switching capability has allowed Starz Entertainment to combine SD and HD channels in a server unit and monitor them all with ease.
"The Wohler units give us the ability to walk by each server rack and immediately see that for all channels the right movie is playing out and that the picture isn't frozen, black, or otherwise compromised," said Lonnie Scheele, executive director of broadcast engineering and operations at Starz Entertainment. "We have enjoyed both the fun and functionality of the systems' unique design, and we plan to incorporate Touch-It Digital systems at our disaster recovery site to provide the same convenience in monitoring server output."
Starz Entertainment's video servers are located in the central equipment room, and playout monitoring typically is performed from within the broadcast operations area. During the company's migration to new playout servers, and before installation of a new router providing access to those servers, the Touch-It Digital systems served as the only means of visually monitoring the server output. The Touch-it Digital's left LCD is a touch screen that displays from four to 16 thumbnail images, which automatically scale to fill the screen. When one of these images is touched, the corresponding video source appears on the right LCD monitor at full size, and its HD/SD-SDI source signal is sent to BNC outputs.
Starz Entertainment servers are set up as redundant A and B servers, with each channel playing out of an A unit and a B unit. Either one of these channels could be on air at any given time. Though the migration to new server systems is complete, engineers continue to rely on the Touch-It Digital systems, as at any time they can walk by the server racks and make a visual check that the two outputs are playing the same video and in sync.
"The Touch-it Digital is an optimal solution for operations such as Starz Entertainment, where space is limited and the video sources are numerous," said Carl J. Dempsey, Wohler president and CEO. "We're pleased that the unit's versatile, full-screen resolution viewing of any video source with a single tap to the screen captured the interest of Starz engineers -- and that it has proved to be a valuable part of the company's regular operations."
About Touch-It(TM) Digital
Wohler's Touch-It(TM) Digital offers unique multichannel image viewing and switching functionality in a smart design and at a list price far below the per-channel rate of many other multi-view models. The 3-RU system features a high-resolution 7-inch widescreen LCD touch screen on one side and a full-size target screen on the other. HD/SD-SDI sources (NTSC or PAL autosensing) are displayed as thumbnails on the touch screen display, with the selected signal displayed on the target screen and simultaneously transmitted to a multi-rate BNC connector output for monitoring on an external display. The Touch-It Digital accepts and switches up to 16 standard HD/SD-SDI video inputs, passing along any embedded audio.
Information about Wohler and the company's products is available at www.wohler.com.
# # #
About Starz Entertainment, LLC
Starz Entertainment, LLC, is a premium movie service provider operating in the United States. It offers 16 movie channels including the flagship Starz(R) and Encore(R) brands with approximately 16.9 million and 30.6 million subscribers respectively. Starz Entertainment airs more than 1,000 movies and new original series every month across its pay TV channels and offers advanced services including Starz HD, Encore HD, Starz On Demand, Encore On Demand, MoviePlex On Demand, Starz HD On Demand, Encore HD On Demand, MoviePlex HD On Demand, and Starz Play. Starz Entertainment (www.starz.com) is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, and is attributed to Liberty Starz, a tracking stock group of Liberty Media Corporation.
About Wohler Technologies Inc.
Wohler Technologies Inc. offers a comprehensive range of products that simplify analog and digital source monitoring in facilities of all sizes and complexity. The San Francisco Bay Area-based company was founded in 1987 and, through constant innovation, continues to be a world leader in providing in-rack audio, video, and data monitoring and captioning solutions for the broadcast, motion picture, and professional audio/visual markets. More information about Wohler and its solutions is available at www.wohler.com.
ENDS
