Newsroom technology
SBT’s complete transformation to digital
When Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT), Brazil’s national television network, set out to design a news production facility, the network’s goal was straightforward: build a facility that would facilitate the integration of content acquisition, contribution and newsroom technologies; create an end-to-end digital infrastructure; and provide journalists and operators with a wide gamut of tools for their workflow requirements (from ingest through playout).
The new Leitch system at SBT replaces an existing Digital S tape environment. The system design consists of a NEXIO server newsroom system that includes five NEXIO transmission servers; six NEXIO NewsFlash FX editing systems with approximately 300 hours (at 50Mb/s I-Frame) of high-res storage in a fully mirrored configuration; and two VelocityQ multi-stream, NLEs. The low-res portion of the system consists of 10 NewsFlash Preditor viewing and editing clients seats, along with 120 AP/ENPS client seats. The new facility features a central ingest point, six edit suites, a newsroom complex and a production control room for news play-to-air.
Systems integrator Brasvideo was charged with the system design and installation of the facility. The installation was a major upgrade — a complete transition to digital — and involved a total transformation of the operations that had been in place for many years.
On a typical day in the new facility, as material is being ingested from satellite or remote feeds into the server system via Leitch’s Ingest Control Manager, a low-res frame-accurate proxy is created simultaneously. The proxy copy can be viewed and edited by journalists; voiceovers can be recorded and inserted; stories approved and inserted into a MOS-active rundown; and high-res, edited originals can automatically be conformed. Proxy-based, edited content is created faster than real time for rapid playout on the high-res server, or the content can be sent on for further editing, including the addition of dissolves, wipes, and 2-D and 3-D effects by the NewsFlash. All of this is done directly on the journalists’ desktop workstations. In addition, Leitch’s Rundown Manager provides active MOS status and connectivity to the MOS-enabled AP/ENPS newsroom computer for play-to-air.
SBT also uses AP’s SnapFeed for content contribution from international correspondence. The material is sent via the Internet, converted by the VelocityQ NLEs and sent to the NEXIO server system via LAN FTP.
The news production facility also includes Leitch’s CCS Navigator and Pilot control software; NEXIO Remote and Pilot applications; 6800 plus modular series products; an X75 SD multiple-path converter/synchronizer for video processing; an Integrator 32x32 serial digital video routing switcher; SuiteView multi-image display processor; and Videotek serial digital/analog multiformat on-screen monitors and signal monitors.
Design TeamTechnology at Work Brasvideo: Leitch: Wagner Mancz, managing dir. sales and marketing NEXIO server newsroom Martin Bonato, managing dir. sales and tech. Ingest control manager Luis Ricardo Bernardoni, managing dir. customer support Rundown manager Eduardo Mancz, customer support and service CCS-Navigator Rubens Ortiz, mgr. of sales and tech. NewsFlash Preditor low-resolution editors SBT: 6800+ Series modular platform Roberto Franco, dir. of eng. Cicero Marques, eng. mgr. Leitch: Edel Garcia, VP of sales
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