Lifetime’s new facility: A broadcast/IT convergence success story

Lifetime Entertainment Services opened its new 50,000sq ft technical operations center March 20, 2006, featuring digital media convergence systems for broadcast and broadband programming. The facility is a culmination of many years of intensive planning and evaluation by a specialized team that included systems integrator Ascent Media Systems & Technology Services, Lifetime’s engineering department and the network’s newly formed Digital Media Task Force — a team comprised of broadcast and IT engineering experts.

This HD-ready facility merges broadcast and IT technologies to create a virtually tapeless delivery to air workflow for Lifetime Television, Lifetime Movie Network and Lifetime Real Women, as well as new broadband programming in development for Lifetimetv.com.

The Technical Operations Center in New York City houses all of Lifetime’s broadcast operations, post-production and graphics facilities and the corporate data center. The building is home to domestic and international telecommunications providers, enabling the team to implement diverse and redundant terrestrial connectivity to the Ascent Media Network Services' uplink facilities in Tappan, NY and Glenbrook, CT. It also supports Lifetime’s mission critical TOC infrastructure, “A” and “B” UPS systems, emergency generator capacity and connectivity to the network’s remote disaster recovery facility.

For more information, visit www.ascentmedia.com/systems.