Voxafrica TV has updated its playout system. The new installation was supplied and engineered by UK systems integrator TNP Broadcast.
Voxafrica TV is a provider of African, Caribbean and American entertainment, news and current affairs which operates out London. It is accessible in Europe, Africa and America.
The channel purchased a multichannel PlayBox Technology AirBox Neo television playout system. The primary purpose for this new infrastructure is to handle The Voice South Africa which will be received as an IP feed from the production centre in Johannesburg.
The solution includes two complete AirBox Neo systems in N+1 configuration plus a failover switch. Voxafrica has also integrated newly-supplied Intinor decoders and encoders plus Crystal Vision fast failover switching. The new equipment was installed in a playout control suite with its own dedicated apparatus room. Incoming production content from South Africa will be ingested and combined with interstitials and other material for immediate transmission. It will also be recorded for later playout.
Each of the two AirBox Neo servers provided by TNP Broadcast is a playout system populated with five modules providing addition ingest, database, scheduling, backup and timeshifting. The CaptureBox Neo module allows HD or SD content to be captured from up to four video sources in parallel. DataBox Neo is a database for media and content management. ListBox Neo enables schedule managers to create and edit schedules in advance and includes facilities such as text searching, clip copying/pasting and schedule printing. SafeBox Neo replicates remote content to local playout server folders for transmission. TimeShiftBox Neo provides user-definable delay in ten second increments up to seven days, logo overlay and multichannel audio. TitleBox Neo provides on-air graphics and titling capabilities which can be manipulated live.
“A system based on the latest-generation AirBox Neo was the logical choice for this project,” said TNP Broadcast managing director Howard Rose. “Voxafrica is a highly successful long-time user of PlayBox Technology equipment so the channel’s staff are fully familiar with the user interface and the high inherent reliability of AirBox-based playout solutions. Another reason for taking the PlayBox Technology route was that AirBox Neo includes IP output as a standard feature in addition to SDI. The IP output is useful for direct feeds to the internet.”
