France’s Media and Broadcast Technologies (MBT) has released details of its work with M6 in the workflow of the broadcaster’s channel Sister (6ter), which launched in December last year. At the time, Christophe Foglio, CTO, M6 commented: “We have performed several technology bets at the time, with innovative choices such as the first use of Omneon MediaGrid in France and the collaboration with a booming French company, Media and Broadcast Technologies, who is taking care of the integration of key parts of our workflow.”
Three weeks before going on air, the weekly programme guide for the channel is published. MBT’s Phoenix Media Recorder manages the priority of the programmes to be digitised based on their availability. The application either waits for the presence of a tape in the Flexicart robot or for a file placed in an archive. The broadcast schedules are created with BCE’s Adonis and sent to MBT’s Phoenix and translated into playlists for playout automation. M6 owns 10 other channels in France, all of which use Phoenix.
MBT’s Labcast is also used to produce the media for 6ter’s VOD, catch-up TV and second screen services. Every month 1500 files are compressed for all of M6’s channels and sent to the replay platforms, including smartphones and tablets. Labcast is adapted to M6’s requirements and MBT is now exploring the possibility of integrating graphics in Labcast for second screen playout.
The master control room uses the Omneon Spectrum system as the main and back-up server. Transmission occurs in parallel on both servers at all times, so if a problem occurs it is possible to immediately switch to the back-up. Graphics management is provided by MBT’s Liberty, which controls Orad’s branding device HDVG.
“We now consider that work conducted with MBT is directly involved in the success of services launched since 2008 such as M6 Replay and W9 Replay. MBT has demonstrated excellent support in the fields of engineering and has been very proactive in the ability to optimise all technical processes that we have entrusted them. Their work has been an important factor in our development broadcast strategy, helping them to become more efficient,“ added Foglio before the launch of 6Ter.
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