In Broadcast - July 2013 - 61

ISSUE 21 - JULY 2013 | WWW.INBROADCAST.COM

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

N E W S

InMEDIA

VECTOR 3: The Playout People
O

ver 25 years of experience in
Playout automation and video
servers brings a very special kind
of insight and knowledge about the
subject.
Vector 3 understands that with
playout workﬂows and equipment
this experience guarantees not
only the success of the installation
but also the optimum use of the
customer’s money.
Very few companies in the
industry have a comparable
record on which to base their
decisions on this particular aspect
of broadcast technology.
With this background Vector 3
managed to incorporate all of this
learning into its product range giving
a range of solutions that is the coded
written history of ﬁve decades of
playout evolution.
Nowadays we are living the ﬁnal
steps of a concentration process that
has led to more and more channels
being produced in the same facility.
The current multichannel technology
of playout allows one single operator
to manage dozens of channels
at the same time with standard
computer technology dramatically
reducing the need for specialised
maintenance.
These two facts have given to
the industry a level of efﬁciency
that ensures proﬁtability for many
projects that would have been
unproﬁtable years ago.
Today’s master control room is
a lonely place, with some racks of
high technology and very few expert
operators that can perform the many
different jobs that were required in
yesteryear as these are smoothly
taken care of by clever pieces of
software solutions working in an
integrated workflow.
A suite of software monitors the
sources of material designated for
each channel searching for new
playlists or video ﬁles to download
from remote FTP locations. Another
keeps checking the downloaded
video ﬁles to validate them “readyfor-broadcast” that allows to pass
to the next stage in the workﬂow to

Multiplay for multichannel playout

be put On Air. Others are moving
ﬁles around the workﬂow, doing
the housekeeping and making sure
everything is running smoothly, with
disk space being managed optimally
as well as a whole host of other
routine tasks. The playout itself is
managed by automation software
controlling the Playout servers and
the video routing devices, the only
remnant from the old days.
In the event of anything not
working as designed a whole suite
of monitoring and control software
will automatically notify operators,
activate and change over to backup
systems, changing the workﬂow to
ensure the screens are ﬁlled with the
scheduled programming.
This level of automation removes
large proportions of the operator
interventions that were required in
previous times.
Playout operators of today need
to master a range of different
abilities but they are not subjected
to the stress of the last-minuteemergencies that plagued the lives

Unlike their predecessors, today’s playout operators are not subjected to the
stress of last-minute-emergencies

of their predecessors. Vector 3
software has eliminated the urgency
and shows problems well in advance
allowing the operator to manage
the situation rather than react to
problems as they arise.
Vector 3 expertise is not limited
solely to software but also embraces
the processes and ingenuity to set
up a new Playout workﬂow, either
as a completely new installation or
as an evolution of an existing facility.
Its worldwide network of system
integrators guarantees a local
physical presence for our customers
across the globe.
Our partners, fully trained
engineers with years of experience,
skilfully integrate all the solutions
required for the installation with the
further help and supervision of our
Barcelona based support engineers
who can remotely configure
the applications and deliver the
workﬂow that has been agreed.
Integration with third party is
managed directly by Vector 3 in
direct contact with the engineers

of the other vendors. It is a Vector 3
philosophy to be as open with other
vendors as possible in the workﬂow
so that together with the Systems
Integrator the deﬁned project is
both cost-effective and delivers the
optimum solution to the customer.
With the pressure to launch more
and more channels with reduced
levels of investment, costs will
continue to increase.
Using the collaborative approach
with our integration partners,
installations are completed in the
minimum amount of time so that
the technology can be put to work
earning money for the channel at
the earliest opportunity.
With over 25 years of experience
in deploying Playout solutions the
Vector 3 team can eliminate potential
project delays well in advance.
The combination of this experience
in operational requirements and
state-of-the-art technology is
the recipe for success in putting
channels to air efficiently.

Today the control room is run by clever pieces of software solutions working
in an integrated workﬂow

61

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In Broadcast - July 2013

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