The Emmis Communications central hub in Orlando, Fla. has begun broadcasting for Emmis TV stations in four cities using Florical's ShareCasting, a centralcasting automation system. ShareCasting can share broadcast control and origination between a central site and regional stations, which allows regional stations to use local content while cutting costs with a centralcasting business model.
The Orlando hub originates four broadcast streams for stations in Orlando, New Orleans, Mobile, Ala. and Ft. Myers, Fla. The hub can also originate two additional channels, as well as DTV break-away programming.
The ShareCasting system originates programming and commercial breaks for the stations from the hub using material stored in video servers. The program streams are transmitted to the stations for passing through to the transmitter. The Orlando hub has complete redundancy and a distributed architecture to provide a high level of protection from failure. Video servers at the regional stations contain up-to-date interstitial material and evergreen program material for the local access periods. The servers can be controlled across the Wide Area Network from the hub, or it can operate as a stand-alone system to air the schedule if communication between the hub and station is lost.
