Pebble Beach Systems has secured a major contract to supply its enterprise-level Marina automation system to Canais Globosat in Brazil. Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, the multichannel cable and satellite TV service has a portfolio of about 30 channels and is moving to a new facility that will support 32. The Pebble Beach system has now gone live with Globosat’s Telecine Pipoca HD. The rest of the channels will be migrated from Globosat's old system gradually as the relocation to its new facility progresses.
The new system comprises content capture, management and delivery components and controls an initial count of 32 channels, with expansion capability to at least 48 channels as the enterprise grows. The Pebble Beach Systems solution being installed for Globosat enables content capture of legacy and new material from Sony Flexicarts and external VTRs onto Omneon ingest servers, retaining original barcodes and interfacing to Globosat's existing content database. After manual QC, the automation system manages the transfers of the media to the Omneon MediaGrid and, depending on the content, to the LTO archive libraries, which are under Front Porch Digital control.
Prior to playout, Marina automatically copies media to the main and backup playout servers for each channel for final review. As part of the facility move, Globosat has installed Omneon servers to operate alongside existing SeaChange and Harris servers. Movies are played out via four Omneon servers (two main and two backup); pay-per-view channels are served by two SeaChange servers (one main and one backup); and sports channels use two Harris NEXIO servers (one main and one backup). Graphics and logos are provided by Miranda and Harris branding processors. Master control switching and routing is done with Miranda NVISION products, chosen partly because they support both SD and HD formats.
Pebble Beach Systems’ managing director, Peter Hajittofi, said the system was configured to meet Globosat's specific requirements. “We configured a hybrid system to suit their wide mix of programming, with the premium channels operating in air-protect mode with full mirroring. This ability to configure the system to suit varying budgets and scenarios really enables the end user to save money and optimize their resources. It also means that the system can be changed on the fly as broadcasters' needs evolve.”
As part of the project, Globosat also chose to move from its old traffic and planning system, which had been developed in-house, to a new system from Pilat Media.
