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10 Aug 2011

Egypt's newest broadcaster launches with Pebble Beach Systems' Marina and Dolphin

Pebble Beach Systems, a leading provider of broadcast automation solutions, today announced that Egypt's newest commercial broadcaster, CBC Network, has launched with 2 Dolphin integrated channel devices under Marina automation control. CBC will be broadcasting three 24 hour free-to-air channels via satellite, and the first of these - CBC Drama - went on air at the start of August to carry relevant drama content for the duration of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

The company's Regional Manager for the Middle East, Samir Isbaih, confirms "This is a landmark installation for Pebble Beach Systems, showcasing the tight integration of Marina and our Dolphin integrated channel device. Together with local partner, New Vision, we have helped launch this new Cairo-based operation in an exceptionally short timeframe, and look forward to working with CBC on an ongoing basis as their operation expands."

Marina is the latest and most powerful offering in Pebble Beach Systems' suite of automation products. Featuring an all-new design, it exploits 64 bit processing and the latest development tools to deliver a highly intelligent feature set. Marina offers multiple language support, dynamic allocation of devices across the system, and a single centralised database, delivering operational and technical efficiencies to broadcasters of all sizes, and allowing channels to be added without affecting on air operations.

Dolphin operates under Marina control as an SD/HD video server, master control switcher, character generator and channel branding solution, combining exceptional channel density with low power consumption. In order to meet CBC's ingest, playout and redundancy requirements Pebble Beach Systems delivered 2 full "Dolphin44" units, one for main and one for backup, along with the Marina automation system. Each 1 RU Dolphin frame is configured with 4 inputs, 2 of which are used for VTR ingest and 2 for recording live feeds. Similarly, each Dolphin has 4 outputs, 3 of which are assigned to the playout of the channels and their backups, with the 4th acting as a review port.

CBC's two additional channels, which make up the main programming for the broadcaster, feature a high proportion of live content and will place complex graphics demands on the Dolphins, including logos, prayer straps, and now/next/later graphics which are populated directly via the Marina playlist.

Ingest is either from tape or from a live feed, and media is stored locally on the Dolphins, as well being copied to a shared storage array which has up to 1000 hours of content.

Once material is ingested into Dolphin, Marina's integrated markup tools enable clips to be marked up into segments for playout. All functions are available via a common user interface which accesses a single system-wide database, making operation of the system simple and straightforward, and avoiding the risk of operational 'silos' being created.

"The entire team at Pebble Beach Systems worked exceptionally hard to help us launch, operating under the pressure of our very short timescales, and their on-site engineers showed great dedication in helping us get on air on time. We'll be taking our 2 main channels to air very shortly and have been delighted with the service we have received so far" confirms Ahmad Mostafa. CBC Network's Technical Director.

Samir Isbaih concludes: "Today's broadcasters need to be able to dynamically allocate resources and require a high degree of scalability and modularity from their automation solutions. In Marina and Dolphin, Pebble Beach Systems now offers the most fully-featured integrated platform for all channel types on the market."

Pebble Beach Systems is a world leader in automation, content management and integrated channel technology, with scalable products designed for multichannel transmission, news, sports and interactive television as well as content management, workflow and direct archive control. Installed in more than 45 countries and with proven systems ranging from single up to over 100 channels in operation, Pebble Beach Systems offers open, flexible systems which encompass ingest automation, workflow automation, archive automation and complex file-based workflows.