In Broadcast - November 2014 - 26

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

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 37 - NOVEMBER 2014

N E W S

InMEDIA

Broadcasting The Pulse Of Mozambique
S

26

oico Group is the largest private
media group in Mozambique,
providing news and entertainment
through its national newspaper,
radio station and TV station, STV,
since 2002.
As well as serving the county's
25.2 million inhabitants, Soico's
network stretches via satellite to
expatriate audiences in Portugal and
South Africa.
To coincide with the launch of STV's
second television channel, Soico
tasked Axel Technology to migrate
the station's existing analogue
and tape-based infrastructure to a
full digital workﬂow for live studio
production, ingest and programme
playout, enabling Soico to transition
to full HD production.
"Creating a second channel
establishes a very strong platform
for STV to differentiate between our
news and generalist programming,"
explains Hassan Solé, STV.
"By offering two distinct channels
with their own distinct content,
we can produce more in depth
coverage and engage further with
our viewers, both in Mozambique,
as well as growing our international
audience. In order to maintain high
production values across both news
and entertainment, it was critical to
have an integrated digital workﬂow
capable of handling the additional
production workload, without
compromising on standards."

Integrated Production
Axel Technology devised a fully
integrated production facility
incorporating a Blackmagic Design
live production workﬂow across
two studios and their individual
production units, a technical and
ingest department and a Master
Control Room. A range of Axel
Technology's play out and media
asset management applications,
designed to specifically

integrate with the Blackmagic
hardware, helps to streamline the
production workflow.
Matteo Castagnoli of Axel
Technology explains that the
Blackmagic Design infrastructure
provided the reliability needed for
the long-term installation: "When
we design television station
infrastructure we need rock solid,
robust production equipment that
will not only stand up to daily
use, but will also future proof a
station's transmission capabilities.
Blackmagic's broadcast equipment
facilitated STV's HD transition, but
will also offer support for Ultra HD,
when the time comes."
STV's main studio is used to
produce news content, including
bulletins and discussion
programmes, whilst the second
is used for lifestyle programming
aired on the generalist channel,
including a daily morning magazine
show. Each studio has its own
independent multicam workﬂow
featuring Blackmagic's ATEM 2 M/E
Production Studio 4K and ATEM 2
M/E Broadcast Panel, where the
master output is mixed.
"The ATEM switchers and panels
installed in STVs studio production
units give the production team the
capacity to include a wide range of
video sources, such as graphics,
full motion clips and lower thirds
titling, which enhance the debates
and discussions taking place in
the studio," explains Matteo. "The
majority of the cameras installed
in the studios are robotic, so
monitoring signal and content
quality is incredibly important for the
production desk. This is achieved
through waveform and histogram
monitoring via Blackmagic's
SmartScope Duo 4K preview
monitors and the built in MultiView
on the ATEM for content previewing."

The studio workﬂow has migrated to a full digital workﬂow

Programme Feeds
Both programme feeds are taken
to a central technical control room
and ingest facility with an ATEM
Production Studio 4K to mix ﬁnal
programming output. The content
from both studios is fed into Axel
Technology's automation XPlayout
and video capture application
XCapture, which are built using a
range of DeckLink capture cards
from Blackmagic. Its XTV suite of
broadcast software provides video
capture, trimming and scheduling,
and has a collaborative element
that enables editors and archivists
to work together on both of
the channels.
Story and news creation are
handled by more than 30 users,
working simultaneously on a media
asset management system, where
they oversee the entire workﬂow,
from feed capture to ﬁnal rundown
playout during their own live
news edition.
Journalists can interact with ingest
and editing departments, and share
playlists and any kind of media on
Axel Technology's four channels
contribution player, YouPlay
Broadcast, which is equipped with
Decklink Quad cards to perform
multi format output, and remote
triggered via the ATEM 2 M/E
Production Studio 4K.

Teranex Output

STV runs two channels in Mozambique

Matteo explains that a Teranex
2D Processor is also installed in
the facility to downscale where
required. "While the aim is for full
HD transmission, there are certain
geographies where we need SD
output available, so the Teranex
enables us to down convert the
ﬁnal programming signal at the
end of the workﬂow, without any
disruption or delay to the new
infrastructure."
A Smart Videohub based in the
technical room manages signal
distribution throughout the facility,

and its new visual routing feature
is a key benefit. "The technical
team can quickly and easily
scroll through an image of each
input, making switching between
sources a very intuitive action; once
again streamlining the production
process," explains Matteo.

The majority of the cameras installed
in the studios are robotic

STV has plans to add a third studio
to its facilities, given the positive
reaction from viewers. "It is very
important to us that we bring the
very best insights into Mozambique
to our audience, whether it is
international viewers wanting to get
the very latest in news and events, or
our home viewers who want to get
involved with the cultural and social
programming," concludes Hassan.
"The infrastructure put in place
with the help of Axel Technology
and Blackmagic Design means that
we have the capability to produce
excellent content now, and continue
to expand production in the future,
without stretching our team or
impacting the quality of our live
studio productions."
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