WJCT, a PBS station in Jacksonville, Fla., has deployed the new Sundance Digital BXF Gateway system, making it the first in the nation to integrate the standardized BXF protocol.
The BXF Gateway provides a secure point of exchange between systems inside and outside the master control networks. The BXF standard offers support for file and message-based data exchange, increases integration of related systems and extends the metadata set for data exchange, via a standardized messaging between a station’s diverse business and transmission systems.
Sundance Digital, a founding member of the SMPTE S22-10 Working Group, developed the BXF Gateway system to support the SMPTE-2021 (BXF) standard, the end product of the Working Group’s three-year effort, which involved more than 150 participants. SMPTE published the standard on April 1.
“Sundance Digital’s BXF Gateway is the meaningful glue we’ve been waiting for to link traffic and automation,” Duane Smith, WJCT’s director of technology said. “Before the BXF Gateway, there were many processes in the workflow that provided opportunities to introduce human error; manually manipulating electronic data by pecking on keyboards is an inherently flawed approach. The BXF Gateway allows information to be entered once, in traffic, and no one has to touch it again.”
Smith also said the BXF Gateway would net WJCT about 20-25 hours a week. The station, which serves northern Florida and lower Georgia with one HD channel, five SD channels and one analog channel, will use that time to step up in the quality control in master control.
The BXF Gateway works in conjunction with Sundance Digital’s Titan, FastBreak NXT Automation and FastBreak NXT Entry Level Edition automation suites and is available now.
