Channel One Russia, the successor to the Ostankino State TV and Radio Company, is working with leading Russian systems integrator Okno-TV to build a content ingest and transcoding centre based on AmberFin iCR technology. This is part of a strategic migration to file-based workflows while avoiding the need for further investment in baseband video transcoders and processors.
Channel One Russia acquires content from numerous international suppliers, many operating in the US, Asia and Europe. Consequently, material arrives at its broadcast operations centre in a broad range of formats, many on tape, so prior to post production and prime time playout, all the material needs be ingested and transcoded into a single common file format.
Having looked at the market, Channel One selected the AmberFin iCR as the best solution. “We were attracted to iCR because of its high quality file conversion capabilities combined with an intuitive GUI that will help our operators in their day-to-day operations,” commented Igor Yadykin, the deputy chief of the technical department at Channel One Russia. “To provide such a sophisticated migration route to harmonised file-based workflows is great: to achieve it without major new investment in transcoding and processing infrastructure is fantastic.”
Initially, Channel One Russia has been running an evaluation project with the iCR on two workstations: one providing file-based transcoding facilities and another enabling SDI content ingest and transcoding operations. With this trial successfully completed, the broadcaster plans to integrate it into a corporate transcoding facility with a greatly increased number of servers.
In winning this major contract, AmberFin and system integrator Okno-TV beat off stern competition from rival technology suppliers. Mikhail Kalanchekaev, head of broadcast IT at Okno-TV, believes that this contract marks an exciting period for them in the Russian market. “ICR has proved to be a powerful and versatile file-based workflow solution at Channel One Russia, and already we are in discussions with the customer about how they can extend their investment. Russia is a dynamic, fast growing market and we see great potential for our partnership with AmberFin in the future.”
