Author: PebbleAdmin

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Globo TV Expands with Marina Automation Systems by pebble in Brazil.

Posted on | by PebbleAdmin

NEWS RELEASE

Company migrates from legacy playout systems for 100% file-based workflow and increased content agility across regions

Weybridge, UK and Broomfield, CO., USA, July 12, 2018 – Leading automation and integrated playout specialist Pebble Beach Systems today announced that Brazil’s Globo TV, part of Grupo Globo, one of the largest media companies in the world, continues to migrate its legacy playout automation systems to Pebble Beach Marina. Already installed in the company’s Rio de Janeiro headquarters, generating Globo’s main feed along with Globo International, the newest Marina installations are located in São Paulo, Brasília, and Recife.
Mirroring the Rio infrastructure, the Marina system in São Paulo provides playout automation from three servers, with four ingest channels and 12 playout channels (four playouts per feed). The São Paulo facility generates the São Paulo state and capital feeds while another facility in São Paulo is currently being configured to provide DR (disaster recovery) for the Rio, Brasília, and Recife operations with real-time media and playlist synchronisation. The Brasília and Recife broadcasting operations each supply one channel to their respective local regions.

“After the successful installation of Marina in Rio last year, we decided to continue migrating the legacy automation systems in our other broadcast centers,” said Eduardo Ferreira, Director of Technology Distribution and Playout at Globo TV. “Our goal was to better integrate our sites with a common workflow for each. This gives us greater agility with content and metadata exchange while also optimising all our resources.”

Marina’s standardised automation platform provides powerful integration across Globo’s regional playout centers with real-time online updates from Globo corporate systems. Marina enhances operational efficiency with automated content exchange and strengthens disaster recovery readiness. Globo’s new file-based workflow eliminates all physical media for content delivery, confirmation and playout, while fully automating media transfers and replication across sites and devices, in accordance with Globo’s business rules.

“Several criteria were evaluated by the Globo team, including Marina’s ability to easily integrate with Globo’s proprietary grid planning system interface,” said Marcelo Blum, systems manager at Videodata, the systems integrator responsible for recommending and installing Marina. “Managing content throughout the process, a solid integration with tapeless systems and media, complete redundancy and resiliency, together with excellent performance were key requirements.”

Marina allows operators to view high-res media clips so they can preview, trim and approve media directly in the Marina user interface. It enables quick and reliable playlist changes and makes airing of breaking news at the same time fast and easy. Comprehensive timers facilitate continuous schedule adjustments to comply with strategic decisions. Globo also utilises Lighthouse, a Marina web client interface, for easy status monitoring and remote playlist control.
In addition to installing Pebble Beach System’s Marina, Videodata also integrated Telestream Vantage and Dolby VM-600 as part of Globo’s complete solution.
 

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India’s State 24 Hour News Channel Chooses Pebble Beach Systems

Posted on | by PebbleAdmin

NEWS RELEASE
Seamless transition from legacy to state-of-the-art automation with no service interruption
Weybridge, UK, June 11th, 2018 –  Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, today announced that India’s Public Service Broadcaster, Doordarshan, has selected the Pebble Beach Systems Marina automation system for its flagship 24-hour news channel, DD News.
With over 100 million viewers across the country, DD News is India’s main terrestrial/satellite news channel. The channel produces over 17 hours of live transmission and 30 news bulletins in Hindi, English, Urdu and Sanskrit. Additionally, DD’s regional news units produce four daily regional shows, and the channel broadcasts daily sports bulletins, a business show, current affairs programs and several special shows on health, youth issues, arts and culture, and international events.
The Marina system, which will be commissioned in the coming weeks, features a MOS interface and offers emergency ingest capability from a live feed. Supplied as a fully redundant system with automatic changeover, it is being installed to replace the Doordarshan’s ageing Omnibus playout automation, which is no longer supported.

“This contract represents an important milestone for our expansion into India. We’re honoured to have been chosen by Doordarshan for this project, and look forward to a long and successful working relationship with them,” said Samir Isbaih, Pebble’s Regional Manager for the Middle East and South Asia.
“As legacy automation systems reach end-of-life, broadcasters want to take advantage of the flexibility and power of centralized, software-based automation systems. With Pebble’s automation systems, we are enabling our customers to put in place a painless, phased transition strategy that allows them to import legacy databases into Marina to ease the migration. This makes us a strong candidate for the replacement of many vendors’ systems,” he added.

A powerful automation solution with embedded content management, Marina is unique in its ability to evolve any playout infrastructure from legacy device control to incorporate new and evolving technologies, with minimum disruption to processes and staff. With Marina, not only is all metadata crucial to the description and playback of assets transferred, but an active database bridge is also created between the legacy system and the new one to keep them in sync and enable them to run in parallel.

“In a time of tremendous change and consolidation, both at the supplier and end-user level in the broadcast and media industry, Pebble’s specialist focus and experience with high-end tier one broadcasters helps them to remain a trusted partner for broadcasters as they transition to newer technologies, including virtualization and the cloud,”

stated Pradeep Singh Kohli, Director at Shaf Broadcast, Pebble’s partner in India.
Ashok Kumar Pathak, Deputy Director of Engineering at Doordarshan News confirmed:

“We’re looking forward to working with Pebble and Marina as we migrate to this state of the art playout platform”.

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TV Cultura in Brazil Migrates Play-out to Marina Automation Control

Posted on | by PebbleAdmin

Public broadcaster upgrades its Pebble Beach Systems automation environment from Neptune to Marina to bring more efficiency and flexibility, and future-proof infrastructure
Weybridge, UK, May 25th, 2018 – Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, today announced that TV Cultura, Brazil’s award-winning public television broadcaster, is migrating its playout operations to Pebble Beach Systems’ Marina Lite automation solution.
TV Cultura has four main channels featuring national and regional news, cultural programming, music, children’s programs and documentaries. It also delivers web-based channels and broadcasts educational content from São Paulo State Virtual University. All channels are accessible by over 126 million viewers across Brazil.
Upholding its reputation for excellence and continuous innovation, TV Cultura recently invested in the modernisation of the equipment and infrastructure of its broadcast operations. Having initially deployed a Pebble Beach Systems Neptune playout automation solution over 10 years ago, TV Cultura is working with São Paolo based systems integrator Video data to ensure the successful migration to a modern Marina Lite 4R automation system with a Lighthouse web-based remote management and monitoring dashboard.
Videodata put in place a flexible but intelligent migration strategy to Marina which is designed to cause little or no disruption to the TV Cultura’s operations, with the broadcaster’s existing Neptune database being seamlessly migrated onto the new platform. Furthermore, because Neptune playlists can be natively opened in Marina, and both Neptune and Marina can talk to the same Archive and NLS in parallel, operators are able to carry on working as usual with no disruption and minimal training throughout the migration process.
The facility has two master control rooms, each operating two channels and four GV Maestro Master Switchers, GV K2 Video Servers and a Jupiter Router. Marina will also control the ingest workflow for TV Cultura, and the system is designed with full redundancy for automation, playout, and the database. In addition to delivering improved integration with the traffic system, this migration will streamline their approvals workflows and media management, as well as their closed caption and web workflows. In addition, Marina will deliver greater flexibility for the operators in terms of layout creation and provide detailed reporting and logging for every device and user.

“TV Cultura has long had a reputation for being a broadcast pioneer and we are constantly looking for ways to improve our facilities and workflows in ways that make sense for the long term,” explained Gilvani Moletta, engineering and technology director at TV Cultura. “Our Neptune automation system has served us very well over the last decade, so upgrading to the more modern Marina was a no-brainer. Not only is the transition seamless but we are also confident that the technology is the right one to help us grow and help us face the challenges of the next decade and beyond.”

With Lighthouse, TV Cultura will extend Marina’s functionality to business users, operational staff and engineers both inside and outside the facility. The web-based interface will give them monitoring, media management, and system configuration tools so that status information and corrective actions are just seconds away, even when they are outside the control room.

“TV Cultura was one of our first Pebble customers in Latin America,” said Marcelo Blum, Systems and Technology Manager at Videodata. It’s always a rewarding experience to work with a such a forward-thinking customer over a long period of time and help them evolve and upgrade their technology without any major disruption to their workflow.”
“Our Marina Lite system is proving to be popular in Latin America where it is being used to provide playout automation and master control for customers who are upgrading or replacing their first-generation platforms. It offers an affordable solution for customers who are looking for a robust, resilient and sophisticated playlist control system that can grow with their operational needs and budgets. We are delighted that TV Cultura has once again chosen to place their trust in Pebble and we look forward to supporting their continued growth for years to come,” added Tom Gittins, Chief Commercial Officer at Pebble Beach Systems.

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Pebble Beach Expands North American Operations with New Appointments

Posted on | by PebbleAdmin

David Russin joins as VP of Sales and Robert Amoroso as Sales Engineering Manager
Weybridge, UK, March 13th, 2018 –  Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, today announced the appointments of David Russin as VP of Sales, and Robert Amoroso as Sales Engineering Manager for North America.
Having previously held positions at Grass Valley, Harris Broadcast, Omnibus and Masstech, Russin brings over 35 years of experience selling automation, automated workflow and infrastructure solutions to North American broadcasters.
In his new position, Russin will be able to bring his breadth of knowledge and connections to help grow Pebble’s business across North America.

“Pebble Beach Systems is a strong influencer in the market with a forward-thinking philosophy in the field of playout and automation solutions. I’m looking forward to building on the company’s excellent foundation in the market and helping to grow the business in North America,” said Russin.

Pebble has also appointed Robert Amoroso, as Sales Engineering Manager for North America. Amoroso brings over 35 years’ experience in the broadcast industry, having managed the pre-sales engineering group at Leitch/Harris for 14 years where he collaborated with solutions architects and applications specialists for master control and newsroom solutions.
With a broad background in television technology and station operations with companies like CBS, ABC, PBS and Univision, Amoroso will be working with Pebble’s US customers to help solve their complex workflows.
Tom Gittins, Pebble Beach Systems’ Chief Commercial Officer, commented:

“We are pleased to welcome David and Robert to the Pebble team and look forward to introducing them to our associates and customers at NAB next month on Booth #SL4528. Between David’s business acumen and industry connections, and Robert’s technical expertise, we are well poised to continue to expand our presence in North America and support the needs of broadcasters both today and in the future.”

Pebble is currently booking NAB appointments here
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Pebble Beach Systems Announces NAB 2018 Product Lineup

Posted on | by PebbleAdmin

Latest versions of award-winning virtualised IP channel solution, automation, CiaB, web-based remote management and content management workflow engine on display.
Weybridge, UK, February 12th, 2018 –  At NAB 2018, on booth SL4528, Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will be showcasing its latest range of solutions, including: the deployment of multiple virtualised channels in the cloud with Orca; Lighthouse, a web-based remote management and monitoring tool for the Marina automation system; and Beluga, a content management system focused on the tasks of preparing content for playout and distribution.

Orca

Orca is Pebble’s award-winning virtualised IP channel solution for playout from the private or public cloud. This proven, software-defined channel delivery solution enables organisations to deploy channels simply and quickly. Attendees will learn how the new low-latency NDI confidence monitoring increases Orca’s suitability for high value live, reactive channels. There are currently over 100 Orca virtualised channels on the air, many of which are complex multi-language broadcasts requiring precise synchronisation and comprehensive audio playout rules.

Marina

Marina is Pebble’s flagship multichannel playout automation system for systems playing out one to hundreds of channels, and is in use at top tier broadcasters around the world. A powerful automation solution with embedded content management, it is unique in its ability to evolve any playout infrastructure from legacy device control to incorporate new and evolving technologies, with minimum disruption to processes and staff. Pebble has a great track record of replacing legacy and end-of-life automation systems, thanks to an upgrade path to Marina which entails minimal interruption to existing workflows, as well as allowing continued use of existing broadcast playout technology. At NAB, Marina will be shown with new options including enhanced channel redundancy options, SCTE-104 encoding and enhanced ‘SmartPanel’ capability,

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is a web-based remote management and monitoring dashboard for Pebble’s Marina automation environment. It enables secure, real-time access anytime and anywhere, beyond the boundaries of the normal TX environment. Powerful channel design tools enable broadcasters to configure a broadcast chain to suit their programming needs, and to deploy virtualised channels simply and quickly. With its web-based GUI, Lighthouse simplifies integration and collaboration with other departments and stakeholders.

Dolphin

Dolphin is a compact and cost-effective integrated channel device which operates under
Pebble Beach Systems’ automation control. Going far beyond typical CiaB (Channel-in-a-box) capabilities, Dolphin incorporates a series of software plugins, allowing organisations to use their preferred best-of-breed solutions within the integrated channel environment. Plug-ins include Ross and Pixel Power graphics, loudness from Linear Acoustic, live captioning from EEG, and Kantar and Nielsen watermarking.

Beluga

Transitioning to the cloud enables broadcasters to streamline workflows, but the transition itself can be daunting. Beluga enables organisations to manage the media supply chain efficiently on premise, and in the cloud. Beluga integrates closely with Marina and focuses on preparing content for linear playout, OTT and VOD distribution. Checking segmentation, program content, allowing for conformance editing, performing comprehensive QC and generating reports are all essential steps along the playout pipeline. Beluga also adds transcoding and proxy creation to Marina’s existing toolset. As the number of users grows, Beluga’s simple web-based interface enables teams to interact with the media dynamically without having to install dedicated client software.
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