Tel Aviv-based SatLink Communications, a global teleport, content management and HD playout services provider, has upgraded its HD playout and content management centre.

SatLink awarded the contract to Harris Broadcast, which has been working closely throughout the project with local distributor, Bluebird TV.

“Harris Broadcast comes with a wealth of knowledge, experience and fit-for-purpose technology which makes them a safe bet in a high risk market,” commented Doron Revivi, chief operations officer at SatLink Communications. “For us, they have developed a workflow solution that is uniquely well suited to our operational and business needs. They have advanced solutions that address every part of the workflow challenge from soup to nuts, and they can demonstrate the ability to grow their system in line with our evolving business needs. With the professional level of support from our technical department headed up by Miki Maor, why would you want to look elsewhere?”

Suite of broadcast workflow tools

The project sees Harris Broadcast integrating its market leading suite of broadcast workflow tools to enable media ingest, quality control (QC), language versions, media management and playout preparation at SatLink’s upgraded playout facility. The resulting workflow is sufficiently flexible to manage both baseband and file-based media ingest, integrating Harris Broadcast media asset management and automation tools to manage the entire HD workflow. Also, Harris Broadcast will integrate a large Platinum™ router within the centre to ensure that video, audio and data pathways are reliable throughout the facility.

The Harris Broadcast workflow will process ingest lists with media asset management software to check content availability status and move/restore items as required to the near-line storage. File-based ingest and archive restores are managed and prioritised according to the transmission date/time before being passed to the automation system, which will prioritise the content.

Using the automation system’s caching mechanisms and the direct lookup/retrieval workflows provided by the media asset management software, the Harris Broadcast system will provide content status and alarms ahead of time to alert operators when content is missing. This guarantees that the right content plays out at the right time.