The SBS Broadcasting Group has awarded Wellen+Noethen GmbH the contract to significantly expand the infrastructure at SBS London.
As part of the project, a number of Scandinavian broadcasters within the SBS Group will undergo reorganisation without having to interrupt broadcasting operations. To centralise the broadcasting structure, Oslo-based TV Norge will be relocated to the playout centre in London, where it will be integrated into the infrastructure as an extra channel. Both TV Norge and Danish TV station Kanal 5, which already broadcasts from London, will be converted to purely HD networks.
Playout processes will also be standardised and optimised, with broadcaster FEM (Norway) being moved from its respective platform of InfoCaster to the Grass Valley K2 playout server system controlled by AVECO TV Automation Astra. To increase the redundancy of the server system, backup channels will in future run on a parallel, independent K2 server pool. This expansion will allow much more flexibility in system maintenance. As a result of the server switchover, S4M’s workflows for AVECO Automation and VPMS (Video Production Management System) will also be expanded for the new redundancy level.
In addition to the standardisation of the playout structure, the ingest process will be optimised and expanded with the VPMS for both file- and tape-based playout. SBS London is to start using the S4M application ClipJOCKEY for future tape ingest.
Once the expansion and conversion work is complete eleven networks will operate at the Chiswick Park playout centre, all with redundancy backup, using a Maestro mixer and Concerto routing matrix from Grass Valley. Five other niche channels will be broadcast using the InfoCaster solution from Harris.
