Omneon Video Networks has announced that TVNZ, New Zealand’s public television broadcaster and largest free-to-air broadcaster, has replaced its studio production tape-based playout systems with a multichannel Omneon Spectrum media server system with 4TB of shared storage. The Omneon installation allows TVNZ to replicate its earlier playout functionality while implementing file transfers of content from the facility’s edit suites.
The scope of the project at TVNZ included replacement of the original playout functionality of the Betacarts. In addition, the Auckland-based broadcaster took the opportunity to design and implement new ingest, production and playout workflows enabled by the Omneon Spectrum server system.
The Omneon server system allows TVNZ staff to continue familiar playout operations while working with digital content ingested via an Omneon MediaController interface.
The panel and software provide ingest functionality, giving users single-button control in driving a VTR and an input port on the Omneon server system to execute frame-accurate dubs from VTR systems, crash records from tape or live feeds, or scheduled records from satellite.
In the near future, digital content prepared by the production team will be transferred from Avid edit systems onto the Omneon server system for playout. Two Hi Tech active CartBox controllers, which mimic the operation of the familiar Betacart operator’s control panel, allow the studio team to cue and roll clips from the server, playing those clips out on specific channels or assigning clips to programmed shots.
For more information, visit www.tvnz.co.nz and www.omneon.com.
