Since 2013, the Russian company Ostankino Telecom has been provided broadcasting localisation and playout services to its customers. Ostankino recently sought a reliable playout automation system to implement a new project on localisation of the MCM TOP French music channel broadcasting in Russia.
A key objective of the project was to locate the MCM TOP broadcast in Russia within a short time. The original channel used the costly ORAD branding system. That meant the new playout system for Ostankino Telecom should meet the same high level of quality while being cost-effective in conditions of financial crisis.
“Choosing a supplier for the new project, we stopped at the BRAM Technologies company, which proved to have the solutions of the highest value for money ratio, as well as a possibility of fast systems adaptation to the needs of customers,” said Denis Ovsyannikov, CEO of Ostankino Telecom.
A prototype of a system, which is similar in functionality to the one needed, was completed within two weeks from the date of the first meeting with BRAM Technologies specialists and discussion of technical stages of the task. The new system was built on the base of the AutoPlay playout automation system.
Standard features of a channel branding subsystem, and the possibility of dynamically changing titles imported from a third-party system to the finished graphic template solved the problem without the need for additional expensive equipment.
“It is important to note that this would not be possible within specified time, if we chose the foreign partner for customisation or insufficiently powerful system with broadcasting backup. Besides, automated solutions of such level are often carried out as a block structure, which increases the final cost of that solution, even though increases the functionality. Therefore, in an era of financial crisis all-in-one solution is the best choice,” said Ovsyannikov.
MCM TOP’s original system generated daily on-air playlists and a variety of additional data for on-the-fly graphics in .txt and .xml files. The structure of broadcasting consisted of dynamic on-screen graphics with unique titles at the beginning and the end of each clip, the static/dynamic channel logo, current time, age marks and changing information line of the current and the next artist to play on-air.
To ensure smart import with extended data, BRAM Technologies specialists developed an additional software module that provided integration when importing text data together with dynamic templates (created in the Title Editor module of the AutoPlay system) in the master playlist.
At the moment, the current data intended for playout consists of SD and HD sources mix, which is adjusted to a common SD 16:9 format by the AutoPlay system. This means that in the future Ostankino Telecom can make the transmission of the broadcasting signal to HD format by simply switching the master signal playout format, with no additional costs for revision of software or onaAir videoservers.
“We are highly satisfied with the proposed solution from BRAM Technologies and plans to continue partnership in implementation of customised turnkey solutions!” concluded Ovsyannikov.
