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Alpha TV selects Rascular for multi-device control and monitoring

Greek terrestrial broadcaster Alpha TV has purchased and deployed Rascular Helm and Mediant in order to provide the control flexibility it requires.

Greek terrestrial broadcaster Alpha TV has purchased and deployed Rascular Helm and Mediant in order to provide the control flexibility it requires. Alpha TV is a family-oriented station that focuses on docu-soaps, light entertainment and live programming and is also carried in Australia, the US and Cyprus. 2012 saw the broadcaster relocate its technical infrastructure with the Rascular technology deployed as a key part of the updated playout systems. Alpha TV has deployed Helm as the ideal complement to its use of Miranda technology – including Imagestores – using it as a manual switcher for all master control operations. This provides it with a level of flexibility that is otherwise impossible to achieve. Meanwhile Mediant is the media management system for Miranda Technologies’ Imagestore range of branding devices. It’s a PC application that enables users to move graphic files easily and quickly from wherever the creative graphics department has stored them to an Imagestore. Costas Columbus, technical director with Alpha TV, said, “As a key example, throughout the day we receive requests to put bugs onscreen for specific animated commercial spots. Mediant is used to monitor the Imagestores and transfer animation files and text files – all traffic necessary for daily operations. Helm then takes the content and puts it on air. We are currently looking at adding more devices to Helm for control purposes as we are 100 percent happy with Rascular – it provides software solutions that work.” Helm allows customers to pick best-of-breed systems – be that branding devices, routers, video servers, VTRs, multi-image display processors and modular gear, or any combination – from a range of different manufactures and provides a single, integrated, user-defined, PC-based control/monitoring surface for operators. This enables users to control channels, or pods of channels, from a single screen using bespoke, pre-defined buttons for complex workflows. Roddy Pratt, technical director with Rascular, says, “It’s always gratifying to know that a customer is 100 percent happy with our multi-device control technologies. We know that our solutions allow broadcasters to think and operate in different ways, creating workflow efficiencies that are otherwise impossible to achieve.” www.rascular.com