In Broadcast - March 2013 - 28

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 17 - MARCH 2013

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InFOCUS

Pakistan’s Geo TV Upgrades To HD
Futureprooﬁng its news stations, the Pakistani-based broadcaster turn to Blackmagic’s ATEM systems…

eo Television Network (Geo
T V ) is Pakistan’s largest
television broadcaster and has
been bringing viewers the latest
in news, entertainment, sports
and youth programming for more
than ten years. With five news
stations in major cities throughout
Pakistan and recent upgrades to
their workﬂow, Geo TV is leading
the country’s HD revolution.
At the forefront of the stations’
upgrade is Afaq Ahmed, Chief
Technology Ofﬁcer at Geo News,
a division of Geo TV. He’s been
responsible for overhauling the
broadcast infrastructure at Geo TV
assisted by Blackmagic reseller Ion
Audio Visual. At the centre of the
newly adopted HD workﬂow sits
a variety of Blackmagic Design
products, including several ATEM
2 M/E Production Switchers as well
as an ATEM 1 M/E and ATEM 2 M/E
Broadcast Panel.

mix or wipe really counts.
“Furthermore, the ergonomics of
the panel are very intuitive and I
found it easy to get to grips with
it soon after the installation. It’s a
nice design and all of the controls
are well positioned for quick
access,” said Ahmed.

Fibre Foundation

Geo TV news bulletin

hardware means we are better
prepared when that change does
happen and ensures we are future
proof,” said Ahmed.

The Right Tools
Digital Switchover
28

“When we started in 2002, GEO
were still operating a partially
tape based workﬂow,” said Afaq
Ahmed. “Now it wasn’t until 2008
that we decided to make the switch
to an entirely ﬁle based architecture.
Anyone who’s done this already will
know that this isn’t an easy switch.
Since making the transition we have
slowly been introducing things like
tapeless cameras, optical ﬁbre and
HD enabled hardware.
“Now, while we have the ability to
produce content in HD, our ﬁnal
output is broadcast in SD. That is
down to the fact that most of the
national broadcasting infrastructure
in Pakistan is still geared towards
SD. What we do is down convert
the HD content to SD for distribution
in Pakistan, the US, UK and UAE,
but we will see that change over
time. Having the HD enabled

According to Ahmed, the master
control room at Geo News in Lahore
is the most critical of all of their
studios, as this is where the output
from multiple stations is collected
before graphics are overlaid and
the digital feed is distributed via
satellite. This all important process
incorporates an ATEM 1 M/E
Broadcast Panel with ATEM 2 M/E
Production Switcher.
“We are using ATEM to input video,
control cameras and graphics,
which is everything that the viewer
will see during the broadcast of our
daily morning news show, ‘Geo
Shaan Say’ and evening talk show
‘Khabarnaak’.
“More recently, we installed a
second ATEM 2 M/E Production
Switcher and 2 M/E Broadcast Panel
for our new 24 hour news channel
‘Geo Tez’, which is broadcast from
our Karachi studio,” added Ahmed.

The HD studio at Geo News
uses three digital cameras, a CG
and playout server connected
to the ATEM 2 M/E Production
Switcher over SDI for live recording
to a tape deck.
Each segment is edited in Final
Cut Pro and then transferred to the
playout server, which is connected
to the ATEM 2 M/E vision mixer and
an external CG to create mixes and
effects. The feed is then either sent
back to the playout server or to
satellite transmission for broadcast.
“The studio setup for all live
and recorded programming is
essentially the same. The only
difference is the down conversion
stage, which is done via DeckLink
cards in a recorded scenario or
the ATEM Production Switcher in
a live scenario. Adding the ATEM
Broadcast Panels to our workﬂow
made sense because it allowed us to
have full control of the switcher, while
adding lots of functionality to the
switching process. I think having a
control surface panel is essential for
a fast paced newsroom environment,
when quickly accessing an effect,

“Blackmagic Design’s products
are some of the most vital pieces
of equipment that we use. Not
only are we using the production
switchers and DeckLink cards,
but we’ve also built a fibre
distribution system throughout
the studio complex using around
100 Blackmagic Design OpenGear
and Mini Converters.”
He adds: “There are a lot of
changes happening at Geo TV,
including new studios, new stations
and new distribution networks to
mention just a few. So when we
decided to build the foundation
for our upgraded studios, we went
with optical ﬁbre as the backbone
because ﬁbre is easy to manage and
can send signals over long distances
without losing any quality.”

Quality And Price
When deciding on what products
to implement into Geo TV’s studios,
combining quality and price is of
upmost importance to Ahmed.
He explains: “We first saw
this combination of high quality
and affordability exemplified
in Blackmagic Design’s ATEM
Production Switcher range. Not only
did we get a high end broadcast
quality switcher with built in multi
view, lots of effects and transitions
and all the connections that we
needed, but it was also a fraction
of the price compared with other
switchers.”

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