At the end of 2012, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTCU) built one of the country’s most modern multichannel broadcasting complexes, which is as good as the similar complexes of the country’s largest media groups in terms of its technical capabilities. This project laid a serious foundation for the future development of national state television in Ukraine.
The National Television Company of Ukraine dates back to 1939. Having become a pioneer of Ukrainian television, UA:PBC continues to be one of the leading players in the Ukrainian TV market in modern history. The company currently broadcasts First National TV channel (on satellite, analog and DVB-T2), international satellite channel First Ukraine, as well as a version of Euronews adapted for Ukrainian viewers.
High competition in our country’s television market poses challenges for any Ukrainian TV channel, the solution of which has a huge effect on the further development of the media group. An important place among them is occupied by technical equipment.
The actions planned by the management of the state broadcaster, including a large-scale modernization of the technical component of the channel, not only strengthened the channel’s position in the television space of our country, but also gave a powerful impetus to the development of the TV company in the near future. The results were not long in coming. Back in 2009, First National was consistently ranked 16-17 in the channel rating, with little hope of developing and strengthening its position. Today, the channel is consistently among the top ten, and its ratings among the 18+ audience (all of Ukraine) have more than doubled.
Objectives.
One of these steps was a large-scale modernization of the on-air equipment and archive. The project was entrusted to the system integrator MacHOUSE (now VisionHOUSE), which has extensive experience in building and maintaining similar systems for the largest Ukrainian media groups (Media Group Ukraine, Inter Media Group, 1+1 Media).
The task assigned to the integrator was to design and build a modern media complex that would allow the TV and radio company to develop and expand organically. The complex is planned for 4 channels, but it was necessary to provide for the possibility of expanding to 8 or more channels in the future, as well as to provide for the transition to HD broadcasting in the near future.
In addition, UA:PBC has one of the largest video archives in the country. Such archival media as disks and cassettes make it difficult to access and use the material efficiently. Therefore, the integrator was faced with the task of not only building a modern digital archive that would simply serve the airwaves, but also providing an opportunity to start a large-scale digitization process of the existing cassette archive.
The TV company’s management took the issue of reliability, functionality, and quality very seriously, so all components responsible for broadcasting TV channels and storing video materials were fully reserved.
One of the requirements of the NCCU was to build the project on the basis of equipment and software solutions from world leaders in their field, that is, the level of functionality and quality should be the highest on the market.
Tight integration of all components and maximum automation of broadcasting allows the leading state TV channel to broadcast steadily and efficiently with a large number of different content.
Several separate modern complexes were implemented as part of one project:
- two broadcasting rooms, each serving two TV channels (separate streams are formed for broadcasting of the First National TV channel on the satellite and in the DVB-T2 network FIRST T2, as well as FIRST Ukraine and Euronews);
- built and equipped hardware engineering rooms, a server room – a data processing center (DPC) and a central digital archive.
All components responsible for broadcasting are fully redundant, which guarantees uninterrupted operation of the broadcast.
The complex is currently broadcasting in SD, but is fully prepared to switch to HD in the future. For example, the London Olympics, Eurovision Song Contest, and Sochi Olympics were recorded in high definition, and the material was sent to the archive in HD, even though it was broadcast in standard SD.
Technologies
Based on the customer’s wishes, the complexes are built on the basis of the best equipment from the world’s leading brands:
- SD / HD / 3G central video router Platinum 128×256 with full redundancy;
- 6 terrestrial SD / HD servers of the latest generation Nexio NX3801 and Nexio Farad disk array;
- IconMaster air remotes;
- Predator II signal distribution and monitoring system and JVC LCD panels;
- ORAD 3Dplay 3D graphics with 6 inputs;
- automation of the D-Series broadcasting complex v.5;
- архів Front Porch Digital DIVArchive;
- Oracle StorageTek SL3000 tape library;
- a media transcoding system based on Telestream FlipFactory;
- Invenio Media Asset Management (MAM) system for archiving, searching, content management, etc.
Most of the components already have many years of positive experience in use on the country’s largest TV channels. The exception was the Invenio MAM system, which was installed for the first time in Ukraine. This solution performs automatic archiving and restoration of the required high and low resolution video materials for broadcast, and also allows you to administer the required disk space on the complex’s servers.
Functionality of the media resource management system for working with the archive:
- search for materials;
- description and logging of materials;
- creating projects, editing video materials;
- import of materials;
- activation of work processes (archiving, restoring, deleting, renaming, etc.);
- work with thesauri;
- work with low-resolution materials;
- support for various formats;
- the ability to integrate with various databases.
Oleksandr Selyaninov, commercial director of VisionHOUSE:
“The newly built complex involves a large number of different professional equipment and components, world-class software, which had to be made as compatible as possible. This project is characterized by a very high degree of integration between all components, and all processes in preparation for broadcasting or during broadcasting are automated as much as possible, as they were supplied by one manufacturer – Harris Broadcast (Imagine Communications).
We have gained extensive experience in building broadcast automation and installing such multichannel broadcasting systems, when several TV channels broadcast from one site.
One of the most difficult tasks in this project was the implementation of the MAM system and its integration with the digital archive. This was the first installation of the Invenio MAM system in Ukraine, and it was a rather laborious process of optimization for a specific customer, its tasks and workflows. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the National Television Company of Ukraine, with whom we have done this work together.”
The practice of implementing a digital archive at the National Television Company of Ukraine is also interesting. In terms of its scale, this is the largest installed library in terms of television archives.
Technical details
D-Series automation controls all devices in the broadcast control room. They have the highest possible degree of integration with each other, as they were supplied by the same manufacturer (Harris, now called Imagine Communications). All these factors minimize the occurrence of errors due to equipment incompatibility or human error. The system manages many processes in the process of preparing for broadcasting or during broadcasting.
Broadcast automation is integrated with the DIVArchive archive from Front Porch Digital. One example of the integrated operation of the systems: if the material is not available on the broadcast server but is in the archive, it is automatically pulled from the archive, fed to the broadcast server and played. Also, in the future, it is planned to add integration with the newsroom, production and other production complexes of the TV channel.
The project provides for the possibility of future development of the National Television Company of Ukraine. Initially, the task was to build a large tape library that would support expansion. There are 8 expansion cabinets and 2 robots that can replace each other. The library was built with a high degree of redundancy, and its expansion potential is impressive – its capacity can be increased dozens or even hundreds of times, depending on the future needs of the National Television Company of Ukraine.
In the process of implementing the digital archive and the MAM system, the integrator, together with the specialists of the National Television Company of Ukraine, carried out laborious work to ensure that the description of the material to be archived in the future met the requirements they have now (before that, it was partly described on paper and partly distributed among old databases). Now the material can be easily found and used.
Thus, close integration of all components and maximum automation of broadcasting allows the leading state TV channel to broadcast steadily and efficiently with a large amount of diverse content. The construction of the digital archive and the implementation of the MAM system allowed us to start a large-scale process of digitizing this archive. The process will take years, but a solid and reliable foundation has already been laid.
Oleksandr Bondarenko, chief technologist of the National Television Company of Ukraine, comments:
“To implement this project, the integrator company offered time-tested components, convenient, reliable, supplied by leading global manufacturers, with many years of positive experience in use on Ukrainian TV channels. For example, D-Series automation and the Front Porch archive have already proven themselves at Inter Media Group and 1+1 Media. Nexio’s broadcast servers are the most widespread in Ukraine. Platinum video routers are currently installed in 8 installations in our country. Most of the other components are the same.
Last but not least, we conducted many trainings on how to work with all components of the system (automation, servers, etc.). The trainings were conducted by experts from the integrator and key vendors such as Harris Broadcast, Front Porch Design, Oracle, and Orad.
From the very first days of the project, we quickly formed a group of engineers who, from the beginning of the installation to the launch, studied, worked, set up and are now maintaining this equipment. During the project, we had to both learn and test new equipment and work in the old control rooms, because no one canceled the main work. We were very pleased that even after the training, the integrator’s specialists continued the practice of testing the technological path of the broadcasting complex in absentia together with our specialists, both during the setup and launch of the equipment and its operation directly on the air, when all the nuances and features were revealed. “
2012
