In Broadcast - October 2013 - 38

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

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 24 - OCTOBER 2013

N E W S

InSTUDIO

PlayBox In The News And On Schedule
At IBC2013, PlayBox released NewsRoomBox and a new version of ScheduleBox...
By Don Ash
Technology Managing Partner
and Sales Director, PlayBox

P

38

layBox Technology is an
international communications
and infor mation-te chnology
company serving the broadcast,
corporate and digital signage
markets in more than 100 countries.
We are dedicated to the research,
design, development and provision
of the best products, systems,
solutions and services.
With over 13,000 TV and branding
channels powered by PlayBox
Technology, the chances are you
will have experienced our broadcast
solutions for yourself. These systems
are used across a wide range of
today’s broadcast activities. These
include satellite, local, regional,
national and international channels,
start-up television channels,
webcasters, DVB (IP/ASI) channels,
interactive television and music
channels, film channels, remote
television channels and disaster
recovery channels.
NewsRoomBox: PlayBox
Technology delivers broadcast
systems ranging in scale from a
single-channel playout server to a
complete multi-channel broadcast
centre. NewsRoomBox, introduced
at IBC 2013 in September, provides
all the facilities required for efﬁcient
newsroom management, story
creation and studio control. It allows
live and pre-recorded content to be
united to create news programmes
using text, video, audio, photos
and incoming data. Video trimming
can be performed with singleframe precision.
The Figure 1 schematic illustrates

a typical NewsRoomBox workﬂow.
NewsRoomBox can be used to
unite and process content from
an exceptionally wide range of
sources including live Newswire,
RSS and Atom feeds. Playout
servers, character generators and
teleprompters may be controlled
directly from the web-browserbased NewsRoomBox ‘Rundown’
operating screen. Control of AirBox,
TitleBox and external routers can be
performed either ofﬂine or during live
transmission. Multiple AirBox playout
and TitleBox interactive CG and
graphic servers are also supported.
Built on the Microsoft Windows
Server 2012 operating system,
NewsRoomBox incorporates
a robust MS-SQL database
management system which allows
an unlimited number of media, text
and metadata and be assigned
to each news story within a userdeﬁnable folder structure. The media
libraries support MAM and NAS
File Storage.
The processed output from
NewsRoomBox can be profiled
for output to tickers, teletext,
web, social media, blogs, mobile
television receivers, Connected
TV and OTT. All news sources and
output formats may be handled
within a single workflow.
ScheduleBox: This advanced
b ro a d c a s t s c h e d u l e r w a s
demonstrated at IBC as part
of a total PlayBox Technology
broadcast production and playout
management system.
ScheduleBox allows template-

Figure 1: Playbox
Technology
Newsroom Workﬂow

based management
of single, or multiple
television channels. It
is easy to deploy via its
web based user interface.
Operators can select daily,
weekly or monthly views and perform
programme block management per
television channel. Gaps or overlaps
are easily identiﬁed in the programme
blocks. Block status such as Draft,
New and Ready-for-publishing can
be monitored and controlled.
ScheduleBox incorporates a range
of new features including an inbrowser clip trimmer with selectable
in/out points, media splitting and clip
preview. Also new is a ﬁle upload
facility which allows content to be
delivered to a remote ﬁle store, all
from a web browser. Content folders
can be assigned to each speciﬁc
television channel. Simultaneous ﬁle
upload and full integration with user
rights policies are both supported.
We have added a series of detailed
operational enhancements which
ensure ScheduleBox keeps its
position as the most efﬁcient and the
most versatile broadcast scheduler
on the market. Enhanced playlist
import capabilities include multiple
watch folders per channel and
automatic metadata assignment.
Media ﬁles can be transferred from
library to schedule with simple
drag-and-drop. A new statistics
module offers an at-a-glance view
of Scheduled versus Aired.
Indonesia’s national broadcaster,
Media Nusantara Citra Tbk, recently

chose a complete broadcast system
from PlayBox Technology for its
MCN News Channel. This was
selected after comparison with other
brands, followed by evaluation of
the PlayBox Technology solution.
Established in June 2006 and based
in Jakarta, MNC News Channel
is a round-the-clock provider of
general news, sports, lifestyle
and infotainment programmes. It
transmits in PAL on Indovision
satellite Channel 84. Sister channels
include RCTI, Global TV, MNCTV,
SINDOtv and MNC Business.
The technical and operational
staff at MNC News Channel
required a system that was logically
structured, easy to use, reliable and
straightforward to expand.
Our proposed solution met all
four criteria and included the further
advantages of fast installation and
locally-available support.
Installed in a single day, the
equipment provided to MNC News
Channel included two PlayBox
Technology channel-in-a-box
servers in main and redundant
conﬁguration. These each consist of
AirBox automated playout, TitleBox
CG & Interactive Graphics, and
CaptureBox automated contentingest system. 32TB of network
storage is also provided.

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