The Japan Racing Association (JRA) has selected the Omneon Spectrum HD media server system to provide ingest and playout for its broadcasts of thoroughbred horseracing programs and information to racetracks and off-track betting facilities.
The Spectrum system installation, integrated by Ikegami Tsushinki of Tokyo, is part of a transition at JRA to an all-HD environment. JRA has installed Spectrum systems at each of its two broadcast centers, located in the Kanto and Kansai areas.
Each provides about 270 hours (6.7TB) of storage, with six channels of MPEG-2 HD ingest and 18 channels of playout at 50Mb/s. At JRA, the racetracks’ live content is delivered to the centers, ingested to Spectrum servers, and transmitted by asynchronous transfer mode.
Besides the races themselves, JRA has broadcast continually updated and thoroughgoing coverage of every aspect of the “sport of kings,” including odds and background information on the horses and jockeys, to 52 locations in Japan since 1984. The Spectrum system went on the air June 21.
For more information, visit www.omneon.com.
