Serbia Broadband (SBB), a leading regional player in internet and cable television, has moved its sports operation to HD. Playout of seven dedicated sports channels, to Serbia and six other countries in the region, now comes from a new network of servers from PlayBox Technology. Each channel has a main and backup playout server, each incorporating interactive graphics. There are a further four barker channels, each compiled with a single PlayBox server. The network also includes seven dual-channel ingest servers and two servers for asset management, archiving and the SQL database. The 27 front-line servers are linked through a 32TB NAS. To add further resilience the network is built on three levels: broadcast, management and backup. All the servers and storage are connected through a 10Gb ethernet fabric.“SBB first started using PlayBox Technology solutions back in 2006, and for all the time since then we have always been happy with the quality of the product and the prompt support,” said Igor Jovic, technical director of SBB. “In order to meet our customers’ expectations we had to go HD and PlayBox was the natural choice for us. With the great quality of picture delivered by the servers we are able to deliver a top-notch TV experience in seven countries in the region.”
