Baltijos TV builds its new HD broadcast platform
on Grass Valley STRATUS framework
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At the beginning of 2012 Lithuanian commercial broadcaster Baltijos TV made a decision to upgrade its broadcast system to attain the best what digital file-based production can offer. The process started with procurement procedure where detailed conditions to contenders were set. As the result of this procurement, Baltijos TV opted for the Hannu Pro solution based on Grass Valley STRATUS media workflow application framework offering streamlined tasks and processes for media production and management with full support of HD. STRATUS facilitates an efficient workflow across the entire content creation and distribution chain from a single, intuitive graphical user interface, and is used in all production stages up to play-out.
Baltijos TV STRATUS news system diagram |
STRATUS
STRATUS production system implemented at Baltijos TV covers browsing, searching, metadata logging, restore/archive, assignment list plug-in, play-list & storyboard editing, removable media ingest, channel panel, and feed ingest scheduling. System includes:
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7 STRATUS Express, 3 STRATUS Pro and 1 STRATUS Elite licenses; |
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8-channel redundant Grass Valley K2 Summit 3G system with 26.6TB RAID6 storage (1320 hours of SD or 700 hours of HD content) supporting internal proxy generation and dedicated 10GigE FTP server; |
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4 STRATUS integrated Grass Valley Edius Elite NLE’s as craft editors |
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It allows to schedule ingest feeds; import, merge, trim P2 media; search, organize and tag content; manage file transfers; import and export QuickTime, AVI, MXF and GXF files; live monitoring of input and output channels using proxies; messaging among users (clips, play-lists, searches and workspaces can be attached); storyboard editing with instant on-air capability; play-list editing; management of K2 Summit 3G channels and operations (play, record, and gang operations); STRATUS archive and restore requests to the Front Porch Digital DIVA archive system.
Baltijos TV news and PGM studio diagram |
Project also covers newsroom, production studio, TV infrastructure equipment, as well as play-out system installation.
News production
Baltijos TV news production is facilitated using Octopus Octopus6 newsroom computer system (NRCS). With full MOS protocol support, Octopus6 is integrated with Grass Valley STRATUS application, Grass Valley Aurora live play-out system, Orad Maestro graphics environment and Autocue QMaster teleprompting system. The STRATUS play-out application sits in line between the STRATUS computer system and the K2 media client play-out channels. It is used for live (as opposed to automated) play-out. The link to the STRATUS client desktops is dynamic - it instantly updates the video playlist based on the Octopus NRCS running order.
For news production to gather audiovisual content also supplied are five fully kitted Panasonic AG-HPX371 ENG cameras recording AVC-Intra 50 HD on P2 cards.
Studios
Core of studio production is Grass Valley Karrera video production centre consisting of a 2.5 M/E 25 button main control panel, a touchscreen menu panel to control Karrera functions along with main control panel, and a 4 RU video processor frame with CPU module. System is accompanied with two channel ClipStore package based on the Grass Valley K2 Solo Server platform. Karrera’s unique 1 M/E soft panel and keyboard option is used as secondary production suite for news production and allows total separation of vision mixer resources for independent production in 2 studios simultaneously.
Two production studios are equipped with 6 (4+2) Grass Valley LDK 3000+ high performance HD studio cameras, supplied with high quality Fujinon ZA12x4.5-BRM-M58 and ZA17x7.6BERM lenses and Cartoni P50 pedestals. Centralized camera control and health monitoring of all camera and base station functions, as well as touch screen capabilities with multiple, ganged camera control are provided with Grass Valley MCP 400 master control panel.
TV infrastructure
Baltijos TV production system is controlled from master control room built around Grass Valley Trinix routing switcher, 128x256 cross points with built in multiviewers. Router provides excellent signal performance at 3Gbps SDI as well as HD/SD-SDI signal rates. Grass Valley Jupiter routing control system makes it easy to consolidate infrastructure components under a single, unified control.
Riedel Artist is used to fulfil all intercom demands in TV station. It is not only the frames themselves being modular and thus expandable; it’s also the system’s architecture itself. Axon Synapse and Grass Valley G-series Modulars tackle a variety of different A/V tasks and are particularly well suited to connect smoothly between analogue audio, SD, AES/EBU, Dolby, HD and 3Gb/s platforms.
Playout
Program play-out is based on Grass Valley K2 Edge Elite integrated play-out solution operating in 1+1 redundancy. With integrated audio, video and graphics capabilities for complete linear TV play-out in SD/HD simulcast it implements an integrated high-end play-out solution, which is used in conjunction with Grass Valley Cobalt automation, Grass Valley TX MAM and Grass Valley Channel Composer. The flexible way Cobalt handles assets and its metadata allows the customer to automate functionality normally preserved to postproduction. This results in a reduction in costs yet applying advanced graphic functionality that distinguishes each channel from other channels. Subtitles (In-vision, EBU/TXT or DVB) are easily integrated in play-out workflow and provided out of same K2 Edge Elite server. Channel Composer unleashes the graphics capabilities of the K2 Edge integrated play-out system. It offers off-line channel branding design, allowing creative artists at Baltijos TV to build the actual channel, pushing the channel creation and creativity one step further away from the technical infrastructure. With Channel Composer and its integration with Cobalt play-out and TX/MAM, ensures for the TV station either a cost reduction in branding or an increase of functionality for the same effort. Real-time information collector - RTic receives data from a broad variety of sources, after which it formats and sends directly on air. Graphics, animations, clips and text can be grabbed from sources such as XML files, databases, RSS or Excel sheets. TV office is equipped with 18 MisTV server/client workplaces handling daily TV traffic management and air-time sales operations. MisTV has tight integration with K2 Edge TX/MAM for automated play-list and database export.
»»» read about the project also on TVBEurope
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