The fully digital production and transmission centre built by ATG Broadcast for British Forces Broadcasting Service Television is now fully live to air. A division of Services Sound & Vision Corporation, BFBS TV assembles and transmits two 24-hour channels from its studios near Amersham in Buckinghamshire.
BFBS1 and 2 can be received via satellite by personnel in 17 countries and by Royal Navy ships in various parts of the world. BFBS TV previously used tape-based acquisition, recording off-air, editing out commercial breaks, with transmission from tape via live continuity.
The network's requirement was a system that fully addressed workflow without introducing any system bottlenecks. Systems that required file-flattening following editing could not cope with the quick turn-round needed for many programs.
The contract with ATG Broadcast included complete refurbishment of the television infrastructure at SSVC's headquarters. 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 terabyte 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 Television 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.
