British Forces Broadcasting Service Television’s (BFBS TV) fully digital production and transmission center, built by ATG Broadcast, recently went fully live to air.
BFBS TV assembles and transmits two 24-hour channels from its studios near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, UK. Military personnel in 17 countries and those aboard Royal Navy ships in various parts of the world can receive BFBS1 and 2 via satellite. BFBS TV previously used tape-based acquisition, recording off-air, editing out commercial breaks with transmission from tape via live continuity.
The network needed a system that fully addressed workflow without introducing any system bottlenecks. Systems that required file-flattening following editing could not cope with the quick turnaround needed for many programs.
The contract with ATG Broadcast included a complete refurbishing of the television infrastructure. BFBS TV is now able to deploy file-based acquisition and editing, playing to air straight from hard-disk server.
To streamline the news production process, ATG Broadcast installed a DaletPlus newsroom system. Journalists can input and review scripts and program material, and will soon be able to access the system via the Web from anywhere in the world.
A 120 TB ADIC Scalar 2K Archive Library controlled by SGL's Flashnet Hierarchical Storage Manager allows files to be saved either as a manual process or according to archive rules set within Flashnet.
Each BFBS TV channel is controlled from its own presentation suite. The suites are identically equipped with Custom Consoles furniture.
The new installation enables content to be acquired and processed much more quickly than before, and has allowed file-based content distribution to reduce manual movement of tapes within and beyond the network's headquarters.
See ATG Broadcast at IBC2006 stand 8.220 or visit: www.atgbroadcast.co.uk.
