Finalist for the IBC Innovation Awards 2009
The first file based High Definition Newsroom in Russia
Customer
Expert Media Holding is a leading Press company in Russia publishing innovative and highly appreciated magazines. To extend information penetration, in year 2007 Expert decided to establish a new television channel with focus on news and culture and based on the most advanced technologies thus to reflect the leading position in press market.
Summary
This project has focus on computing technologies supporting non interlaced scanning in High Definition domain. It demonstrates without any doubts that it is possible to deploy a complete tapeless system with the same effort as in the standard definition domain. Content repurposing and multi platform delivery, newsroom workflow and media asset management integration assure smooth production facilities and faster processing. Unique tools, such as “edit while ingesting” even in HD or complete story creation right on journalist desktop with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) features, accelerate even more the production and the final rundown.
High Definition file based Digital Newsroom now is possible. Expert-TV is the first example in Russia.
Solution overview
The Expert-TV managers decided to implement a very innovative channel, based on the most advanced technologies, fully tape less and with the capability to repurpose the contents to several platforms such as the web and mobile phones. Broadcasting is held through communication satellite and covers the whole territory of Russia and Western Europe.
To get this result Expert-TV selected the most important Russian System Integrator and Supplier: I.S.P.A.-Group. I.S.P.A. took advantage of the support of a specialized company in Information Technology, called RUSLAN Communications with important experience in deploying IT solutions for television.
The first decision of the team composed by Expert-TV and I.S.P.A. was to design a channel fully based on HD (High Definition), but to take advantage of faster processing, for the Newsroom has been preferred HDV 720p50. This format, in the HD domain, has the unique advantage to provide very high quality but in the same time using less bandwidth, storage and computational power. This is an excellent solution to overcome the limits of Newsroom based on Standard Definition while avoiding full HD, at least for the Newsroom, with the risk to face a bottleneck in performance. To manage 100Mbps in a fast environment like a Newsroom is not easy since the present technologies are not yet ready to move data over the network at the speed required by a Newsroom workflow.
The second step and decision of this team was to select the supplier for all the software required to manage the whole Newsroom. This supplier should have already the capability to manage HD and HDV in a Newsroom as well as having a turnkey solution. After several months of analysis the team selected Media-Alliance an Italian company with necessary products and skills to face this important project.
Mr. Brusnizkiy, the Chief of Technology & Operation – Expert-TV, describes the engineering part of the project: “The basis is a network infrastructure with very high bandwidth, big processing power and essential volume of storage. Storage system has 3 hierarchical levels: online storage, long-term archiving and storage of low-resolution data. Complex is designed with the usage of open technologies. So it can be universal, scalable, with easy setup.” Expert-TV uses JVC cameras working in 720/50p format. Recording is held to disc-recorders. So after recording process files from the disk are being moved to the host-based data base. These cameras can be used either for ENG troupe or even for studio recording.
Expert-TV has 2 studios. One of them, for news releases, has 4 cameras, video mixer Kayak, audio mixer Soundcraft and Lighting by 2 companies: ARRI & Dedolight. The system includes also a matrix 96 x 96 by Network Electronics. Recorded material is stored to HP EVA 8100, up to 39 TB. Some of the users are connected to the central storage through TCPIP, and some (servers, editing rooms, etc.) – through Fibre Channel. Each Studio has 2 servers provided by Media-Alliance. Every server has 2 recording/ playback channels. These servers use standard technologies and have very high performance. Matrox video input\output cards are inside and supported by advanced Media-Alliance software. Servers are integrated into the Newsroom system and support all its functions right up to including any last minute changes into the rundown. About codec and format used as “main”, it was decided that all the files would be in 720/50p format and would have MPEG-2 TS codec. The above-mentioned format supports the whole processing chain thanks to Media-Alliance software and applications. Browsing is done with the very advanced MPEG4 H.264 with slow motion capabilities, full jog & shuttle even in the network as well as multiple audio tracks support. The system can browse also in HDV directly.
Also the character generator is provided by Media-Alliance and supports HD 2D/3D animated effects. As a unique feature on the market, the journalist can compose the graphics right on its own desktop and see immediately and exactly the result of what will go on-air. All the stories, composed by graphics, script, and voice over, video and photo are managed by NewsNet in a homogeneous workflow, including the support of news wires, such as Reuters and APTN. In the background is running a powerful Media Asset Management, MediaXplorer, supporting and automating all processes and jobs, including transcoding, conversion and processing in a multithreading, multiprocessing and clustering environment. Although each journalist can complete the whole story on own desktop, including clip conforming, Expert-TV prefers to reduce the journalist loading by using dedicated NLE stations and editors. Finally all the material is archived on Digital Tape Library with Xendata Archive manager, tightly integrated with MediaXplorer.
The project is on air since the end of 2008 and in full production since the beginning of 2009. The new TV-channel is now broadcasting 24 hours a day using existing network of satellite and cable channels.
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