MINNEAPOLIS—Cablecast Community Media, a division of Tightrope Media Systems, has formed a new executive team to lead the business effective with President Steve Israelsky’s retirement on Dec. 31.

As previously announced, Tightrope co-founder and CEO JJ Parker will take on a more active role as CEO of Cablecast Community Media on Jan. 1. He will continue in his capacity as Tightrope CEO, where he oversees the company’s Cablecast Community Media and Carousel Digital Signage businesses.

In addition, Dana Healy and Ray Tiley will also join the Cablecast Community Media leadership team on Jan. 1, working closely with Parker to manage Cablecast’s business and technology functions as chief operating officer and chief technology officer, respectively.

Healy was named Cablecast’s vice president in January 2022, bringing 23 years of community media experience across multiple disciplines to the company. She held leadership roles at community media operations in Massachusetts and Minnesota, serving as executive director with both organizations. Healy will continue to oversee all Cablecast sales and operations while bringing the Cablecast brand to a broader customer base, including an increased emphasis on serving local municipalities.

iley transitions into the CTO role with 15 years of engineering experience at Cablecast, including seven years as vice president of engineering. His vision inspired the evolution of Cablecast’s product portfolio beyond cable playout automation and into new areas such as live streaming, video-on-demand and content delivery to Cablecast apps.

“Dana has introduced processes and strategies to Cablecast’s business operations that have created better outcomes for the customer experience, and as COO she will bring exceptional structure to the entire organization,” Parker said. “Ray has focused most of his efforts on the Cablecast product line since joining the company, and as CTO he will have the freedom to drive all product innovation for the division in ways that will help our customers more effectively reach their communities, grow their audiences and evolve their brands.”

Parker also reported that he will collaborate with Healy and Tiley on new initiatives that will take the Cablecast business into new areas, beginning with the launch of a new product brand that will surface in the weeks prior to the 2025 NAB Show. That show also marks the return of Cablecast to the NAB Show exhibition floor, where the company will exhibit in West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“Tightrope was formed in 1998 to provide flexible and affordable technology solutions for three underserved markets, including cable access television and digital signage,” Parker said. “My earliest responsibilities involved developing the Cablecast business and product line. I couldn’t be more proud to return to a leadership role of this business and working alongside Dana and Ray, both of whom have been strong contributors to the Cablecast business.”

MINNEAPOLIS—Cablecast has released a case study showing how Campbell Media in Campbell County, Ky. uses its solutions to provide meeting coverage for 11 different cities as well as the county’s fiscal court. 

To manage the workflow, Brady Wurtz, programming coordinator at Campbell Media, said he relies on the full spectrum of automation hardware and distribution service solutions from Cablecast Community Media, a division of Tightrope Media Systems.

“We are a very small staff and we cover all of the county. We have a lot of things going on and we can’t all be there at the same time,” Wurtz said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. There are probably 19 different regularly scheduled meetings every month that we cover in about 15 locations.”

Campbell Media has a small, dedicated team of three full-time employees, plus a handful of contractors to provide the programming.

It is a service of the Campbell County Cable Board, the local cable TV regulatory authority that manages the franchise agreements with Charter/Spectrum and Altafiber. Its coverage of government meetings is mainly commissioned by the cities it serves. The production schedule is full of regularly scheduled meetings, but sometimes Campbell Media is asked to cover special meetings as well.

“If a city reaches out to us, we’re happy to go out and cover their meetings, even broadcast them live,” Wurtz said. “Usually, we post them on our website by the next day, and we’ll broadcast them on TV for people who don't have internet access. We try to make sure everyone can view what’s going on in their community.”

Tasked with providing a direct outlet for community programming, Campbell Media supports six channels: one for government meetings and other content (CGOV); one for staff-produced content, such as sports coverage, events, and series (CCMC); two for public content, including shows produced by local producers (CCTV) and religious programming (CCRN); and two local education channels. Cablecast VIO 4 video servers are allocated to the government and Campbell Media channels, while Cablecast VIO 2s are dedicated to the public content channels. The education channels use a combination of a Cablecast VIO Lite and an older Flex Series server, Cablecast reported. 

Cablecast CG is used for community calendars for each channel. There are also plans to include a new Cablecast service. Recently, Campbell Media received a grant to cover the cost of captioning its programming, which will soon become a requirement for web and mobile app content due to the ADA’s new WCAG 2.1, Level AA rules. As a result, Wurtz expects to add Cablecast Closed Captioning to the workflow this fall.

“I like the streamlined Cablecast interface. It makes it easy for our small staff to simplify workflows. Staying in one ecosystem also eliminates the ‘middle man’ of other hardware and software systems that can create points of failure,” Wurtz said. “And I really, really appreciate the support. Cablecast’s tech support team understands the workflow of PEG stations and responds quickly to fix any issues we have. I’ve never considered looking somewhere else for our channel playout.”

Campbell Media only has one permanent setup, their own studio, which is where they cover their own cable board meetings. Most meeting coverage is limited to a single camera shoot. Some of the meetings are conducted in buildings that do not have the infrastructure to support multi-camera coverage. The crew has to setup the camera and tripod, as well as audio and streaming equipment, then remove it after the meeting is over.

For live meeting coverage on cable and online, Campbell Media takes an HDMI feed from the camera into one of its three Teradek VidiU streaming appliances. An Ethernet port at the government building then allows Campbell Media to feed the video into the Cablecast ecosystem back at its studio.

Through its Cablecast LIVE hardware, which produces adaptive bit rate live HD streams, Campbell Media uses Cablecast REFLECT to cache popular VOD content in the cloud. Mobile and OTT viewers are encouraged to view programming through the Campbell Media app, which is available for the Apple TV and Roku platforms.

“We livestream an RTMP feed, which we ingest through our Cablecast RTMP and broadcast to our cable station. From there we will simulcast onto our website for live streaming,” Wurtz said. “Same thing with our apps – viewers can go in and watch our apps on their phones or their OTT boxes. Some meetings want us to broadcast to social media platforms like Facebook, so we do that as well.”

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—Cablecast Community Media has announced that it will be previewing its new Social Streaming and Control Rooms features, which simplify direct streaming and simulcasting to social media platforms from Cablecast Automation software, at NAB Show 2024 in Las Vegas (April 14-17). 

Cablecast exhibits at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel, Suite 839, next to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. 

Building on the ability to playout and record unlimited network stream sources, the new Social Streaming feature for Cablecast VIO video servers provides municipalities, educational institutions, PEG stations, and businesses with a reliable, straightforward way to stream live events directly from their Cablecast video and automation server to social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch, the company reported. 

Designed specifically for events televised from the TV studio or city council chamber, social streams can be scheduled directly into the playout schedule the same way all live events are scheduled in Cablecast, or as a user-initiated switch in the virtual switcher. 

“Social Streaming is a vital tool that empowers our clients to schedule live events to be streamed directly to their audience's favorite social media platforms. With Cablecast, simulcasting to social media is now a simple and seamless part of your public communication strategy,” said Steve Israelsky, president, Cablecast Community Media.

The new Control Rooms feature will simplify broadcast and streaming event workflows for Cablecast operators by giving them customizable views for live switching. As organizations add more network sources and digital distribution platforms to their channel operations, a single Cablecast system may include several live sources, network encoders, multiple channels, and live streams, the company explained. 

“We see so many PEG operations supporting multiple channels, it can become difficult to navigate the manual controls, even in our streamlined interface,” added Israelsky. “Control Rooms lets you configure a separate, simplified set of devices and outputs – just the ones you need for that particular production – to streamline the live event process.”

With Control Rooms, a station covering council meetings for several cities can create a control room for each municipality that displays only the specific channel, source locations, and outputs needed for each city, the company reported. 

Combined with the Social Streaming feature, the Control Rooms user interface also gives users a shortcut to start an RTMP stream and begin streaming directly to social media platforms like YouTube. Additional tools in the event bar include a countdown, controls for starting and stopping the live event, and testing the live streams. 

Cablecast is scheduling meetings for the 2024 NAB Show to demo its new accessibility upgrades and other PEG channel solutions here.  

WATERTOWN, Mass.—Watertown Cable Access Corp. (WCA-TV) here has replaced its automation and playout system with the Cablecast Community Media solution from Tightrope Media Systems, the vendor said.

"We were increasingly unhappy with our previous system,” said Andrea Santopietro, assistant director at WCA-TV. “The manufacturer released what they considered major updates to their software, but the upgrades were buggy and seemed more like cosmetic changes rather than what customers like us wanted or needed. Lots of updates that we had been promised were never delivered, and it was frustrating going back and forth with their customer support staff but not seeing any real changes or fixes. Our programming was suffering to an extent, as was the public’s ability to access our content. We were ready to move on to something new.”

WCA-TV operates three public, education and government (PEG) channels from its facility in Watertown High School.

WCA-TV purchased a complete Cablecast solution from Brockton-based technology supplier Ockers Company in May 2021. A Cablecast VIO 4 Plus server provides automation and playout for the three channels, while three Cablecast Live units and a Cablecast Pro VOD server power 24/7 live streaming and video on demand. Cablecast CG software running on the Cablecast VIO server drives unique bulletin boards for each channel.

Cablecast apps bring live streams and VOD clips to viewers on over-the-top (OTT) and mobile platforms with digital content delivered over the Cablecast Reflect cloud-based streaming service. The Cablecast RTMP service lets the station easily integrate Zoom and hybrid meetings into its channels, the company said.

“I really enjoy how the Cablecast scheduling interface is laid out, and how easy it is to drag and drop shows, replace content, and move things around. “It’s so simple and straightforward. It has been a huge time-saver for us, cutting my scheduling time roughly in half,” said Santopietro, who added that publishing VOD content with he Cablecast system is fast and easy.

The Cablecast system also makes it easier for viewers to find the VOD content they are seeking. “…[W]ith Cablecast, we have a distinct VOD site for each channel, and visitors can search across all three,” she said. “We can also easily group and reorder content to make it more discoverable.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

MINNEAPOLIS—The Cablecast Community Media platform from Tightrope Media Systems was already in place for Massachusetts’ Cambridge Public Schools (CPS), but a recent addition of the Cablecast Pro VOD option has helped boost online video delivery for the group’s educational purposes.

CPS hosts complete TV production capabilities, including playout operations, from its Media Arts Studio. Cablecast had been in use in this studio for many years, but Cablecast Pro VOD was brought in as an upgrade to a previous online VOD system, which wasn’t consistent with ingest and processing functions, according to Matt Mena-Landry, Media Arts program manager at CPS.

The Cablecast Pro VOD option allows for videos to be embedded within webpages, as well as provides high-quality video with no playback issues thanks to adaptive bitrate support. There’s also an ability to add chapter markers and display related PDF content and metadata next to the video.

In addition to the VOD option, CPS also upgraded to a new Cablecast VIO server and added Tightrope’s Screenweave LIVE service to bring Zoom-based video conferences directly to Cablecast.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to remote learning for much of the last year, Mean-Landry says that video has become a major form of communication. “Being able to easily share that video in the highest quality possible has been critical for us, and Cablecast is enabling us to do that,” he added.

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS—Tightrope Media Systems has debuted the Cablecast VIO Stream, an automated system for bringing live event streams and on-demand video to various platforms, including OTT platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV or Android TV. Local governments, schools, churches and businesses can get particular use out of the system, according to Tightrope.

VIO Stream has brandable, turnkey web pages that let users showcase their VOD clips, live streams and program schedule in consistent content portals. A set of APIs is also available for customers to integrate dynamic schedules, live streams and VOD playlists into their existing websites.

As live or file-based content is added or scheduled through VIO Stream’s interface, the system automatically performs any required transcoding for online and OTT delivery, as well as updates the live event schedule on their bulletin board and website. VOD collections on all platforms can be automatically populated, with users only needed to upload a program or event once, from which VIO Stream publishes it everywhere and updates all content portals and apps.

Users can combine VIO Stream with Tightrope’s Screenweave LIVE cloud service to livestream or record conferencing sessions from Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Additional features include remote management through a mobile-friendly interface; the ability to bring in IP input streams and NDI sources directly for live playout or recording; integrated graphic tools; a VIO Stream digital bulletin board to display program schedule information and integrate external data; VOD chaptering; and embedding documents alongside related media.

“Just as the proliferation of online and OTT platforms has enabled consumers to stay entertained and informed even without cable television service, VIO Stream enables all types of organizations to bring their content attractively and efficiently to audiences without needing a cable channel,” said Steve Israelsky, president of Tightrope’s Cablecast Community Media division. “We’re excited to bring this publishing power to a wider range of producers.”

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS—When opting to replace its old automation and playout system, Michigan’s Orion Neighborhood Television (ONTV) chose the Cablecast Community Media platform from Tightrope Media Systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the upgrade allowed the station to deliver timely content to its community faster and more efficiently.

ONTV’s legacy system was failing and the station was looking to move on from its franchise fee funding model, according to Executive Director Ian Locke. With Cablecast, Locke said ONTV was interested in its scheduling tools and ability to incorporate short-form promos on channels and bulletin boards that would help enable new funding models. “It checked all the boxes,” Locke said.

Cablecast’s Auto-Schedule feature automatically produces recurring time slots, which ONTV uses to easily update its education channel, according to Locke. The system’s multiformat playback capabilities also eliminate the need to transcode incoming clips, offering native playback and the ability to play video captured at non-broadcast frame rates. Integrated online publishing workflows from Cablecast have helped ONTV’s mobile and web offerings.

In addition, ONTV is using Tightrope’s cloud-based Screenweave OTT service to automatically bring live streams and VOD content to the Roku OTT platform.

“I had worked with our previous vendor’s system for over 20 years, and moving to Cablecast was refreshing,” summarized Locke. “It frees our time to work on other things and has the flexibility to adapt with us as our needs evolve. We feel comfortable that our future is in good hands with Tightrope and Cablecast.” 

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS—Nā Leo TV (NLTV), a PEG station serving Hawaii, recently switched to Tightrope Media Systems’ Cablecast Community Media platform to help streamline its operations, including scheduling and remote access.

NLTV uses Cablecast Live and Cablecast Pro VOD solutions to publish its live channels and on-demand content to its website and mobile offerings. The station also relies on Cablecast’s intuitive interface for scheduling and playout purposes.

During a 2018 volcanic eruption, NLTV was able to use Cablecast CG’s Carousel bulletin board software, which displayed press releases from the Civil Defense Agency, as well as audio and daily updates from U.S.G.S volcanologists, to provide emergency updates.

During the pandemic, Cablecast’s remote access capabilities enabled staff to handle scheduling of both recorded and live broadcasts.

NLTV recently added the Enco enCaption system, which provides automated closed captioning for the Cablecast channels. There are also plans to integrate information like school closures and storm watch notices into its channels in the future.

“Cablecast has been a very dependable solution for us at a reasonable price, and makes it very easy to manage our programming,” said William Maffit, IT manager at NLTV. “It has been very good for our operations and helped us be even more valuable to our community.”

MINNEAPOLIS—North Penn Television is the educational access channel for the North Penn School District in the Philadelphia suburb of Montgomery County. To help students continue to get school-related content during the pandemic, NPTV relied on Tightrope Media Systems’ CableCast Community Media platform and Screenweave LIVE cloud-based service.

The Cablecast platform had been part of NPTV’s infrastructure before the pandemic, helping the student-run station cover school meetings, sports and concerts, including daily morning and a monthly newscast to the larger community.

In April, after schools were closed due to lockdowns, NPTV began using Screenweave LIVE, which enabled student broadcasters to continue reporting the news from their homes by adding live Zoom web conferencing feeds to the Cablecast system.

“We continued doing a full live television show each Friday with our high school students in their homes, me managing it from my living room, and pushing it out on YouTube, Facebook and our Comcast and Verizon channels,” said Bob Gillmer, North Penn School District’s coordinator of communications media. “It also lets us bring our virtual school board meetings into our channel live, across all our platforms.”

Gillmer also praised the ability to access Cablecast remotely through a browser-based interface, as well as the remote upload feature.

Even when things return to normal with students back in classrooms, Gillmer says that they will continue to utilize Cablecast and Screenweave LIVE as part of its broadcast infrastructure.

MINNEAPOLIS—Tightrope Media Systems has debuted the latest version of the Cablecast Community Media platform, v7.2. The new software for the broadcast automation, playout and content publishing platform offers support for NDI, as well as new clip trimming and metadata tagging capabilities.

With the v7.2 software, Cablecast can ingest NDI streams from NDI-enabled systems from anywhere on the network, Tightrope explains. This expands Cablecast’s flexible support for bringing live, network-based input sources into the platform for recording or broadcasting without an external decoder.

The Cablecast platform’s IP support has been further optimized with this update to directly encode network streams or files for subsequent playout without typing up a baseband recording channel on the server, per Tightrope.

The platform’s new virtual clip editing features enable users to cut out non-essential sections of a recorded program without needing a second editing system or creating multiple versions of the file. This includes the File Trimming and File Linking functions, which allow operators to mark in and out points within the recording to define sections. The new linking feature also enables a single shared file to be incorporated into multiple shows in the scheduler.

Taking it a step further, a feature of v7.2 allows users to skip recording entire sections by pausing and resuming recording during specified periods.

Another feature is an updated Tags field that allows multiple defined values in a single field.

Cablecast v7.2  is available for users of Cablecast VIO and Cablecast Flex media servers, and is free for Cablecast customers on active support agreements.

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—Providing its community with government coverage, informative programming and hyper-local news, Greater Northshire Access Television (GNAT-TV) in Vermont has taken advantage of new Cablecast Community Media enhancements to enable remote operational models during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to its work publishing content across different outlets.

With stay-at-home orders forcing the GNAT-TV team to adapt to remote production, the Cablecast remote file upload feature has been a key tool. This enables users to copy file-based content onto their Cablecast server and associate metadata with it from anywhere with an internet connection. The station also uses Cablecast’s live IP input feature to bring real-time YouTube streams from the governor’s thrice-weekly press conferences into their channel, while also recording them for future playback.

Another new way that GNAT-TV is using Cablecast is with its full-featured development API, which the station used to integrate Cablecast’s automated VOD publishing capabilities with its WordPress-powered website.

It has also been using the Cablecast VOD chapter marker feature to create more online viewing experiences and to advance the goals of its hyper-local news programming, “The News Project.” Then, with Cablecast’s Screenweave OTT Pro option, GNAT-TV has been able to offer its live and VOD content to OTT viewers through its own, custom-branded Apple TV app and Roku channel.

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS—It was time for an upgrade at Granite Town Media in Milford, N.H., with the station acquiring a new Cablecast VIO multiformat video server to handle its automation and playout duties as it prepares for HD broadcasting.

Offering cable television, live web streaming, social media and OTT channels, Granite Town Media is expected to launch its first HD cable channel in 2020, requiring the station to upgrade its infrastructure and equipment to high-definition SDI. Having experience with a Cablecast SX4 server in the past, the station opted for version 7.0 of Cablecast VIO.

The specific setup is a Cablecast VIO 4 playout server, configured as three playout channels—one for Public, Education and Government offerings—and one recording input. The station’s live streams and on-demand video library are powered by Cablecast Live and Cablecat Pro VOD, with the cloud-based Cablecast Reflect supporting stream delivery. Cablecast Screenweave, meanwhile, brings live and on-demand content to Roku and Apple TV devices.

Other features of the new Cablecast setup include the ability to run multiple instances of broadcast-optimized Cablecast CG software within a single unit; squeeze-backs and expanded channel branded capabilities; and other operational benefits like uploading files remotely through a web interface, batch scheduling functions and a confidence monitoring feature.

Granite Town Media updated its system in July 2019.

MINNEAPOLIS—A new software upgrade is coming for Tightrope Media Systems’ Cablecast Community Media broadcast automation, playout and publishing platform with the launch of Cablecast 6.6. The platform’s new features are designed to automate repetitive scheduling tasks and simplify the day-to-day programming operations for broadcasters.

One of these new features is the Gap Filler tool, which fills breaks between shows with content beyond the channel’s community bulletin board. Programmers can click on a gap in the schedule and select a saved search made up of short-form content, Gap Filler will then automatically calculate and schedule appropriate clips from that search to fill any gaps. Additional options include defining intro and outro messages and “Do Not Allow Repeats.”

An Auto-Scheduler feature automatically populates recurring time slots. Users can define recurring time slots indefinitely into the future and set the Auto-Scheduler to populate them with the most recent show from a specified project. Programmers can also intentionally repeat a single show across all recurring slots and can flexibly override automatically-scheduled entries.

These new features utilize this version of Cablecast’s new allowable date range parameters. Start and/or end dates can be set for each show with any scheduling done by the automatic system outside of those dates will be denied, and if it is scheduled manually a warning message will appear.

Tightrope Media Systems will roll out the latest version of Cablecast at the end of February. The company is also expected to demonstrate Cablecast 6.6 at its suite in the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel during the 2019 NAB Show.

MURFREESBORO, TENN.—Government access channel Murfreesboro CityTV has a mission to educate Murfreesboro residents about local government matters; present informational and cultural programming; and encourage citizen participation in the city’s programs and services. Our operations have come a long way since we started the channel in 1993, when our station automation consisted of controlling multiple Betacam decks. Today, our channel is available on cable, the city’s website, YouTube and OTT devices.

Two years ago, we set out to upgrade our production and playout capabilities to high definition. While we aren’t able to broadcast in HD on our cable outlets yet, we wanted to take advantage of HD quality for our streaming offerings. Our previous automation and playout system vendor was no longer in business, so we needed to switch to a new solution.

ONE-STOP SINGLE VENDOR SOLUTION

We were already using Tightrope Media Systems’ Carousel software to drive our video bulletin board, which led us to consider Cablecast as our next automation platform. After evaluating multiple vendors’ products, we decided that Cablecast was the best fit for us. It offered a complete one-stop, single-vendor solution for all of our needs, and was also more cost-effective than other options we considered.

We purchased a Cablecast Flex 4 play-out server with the Cablecast Broadcast Automation software. Cablecast Live and Cablecast VOD systems create our live streams and on-demand clips, which are delivered to viewers through the cloud-based Cablecast Reflect streaming service.

The multi-codec flexibility of Cablecast is a big workflow advantage over our previous system. The old platform could only handle MPEG-2 files, so we needed to transcode everything else before we could ingest it. Now we load MPEG-2, H.264 and ProRes 422 files directly onto our server, with no conversion required.

Our Avid Media Composer workflow is similarly improved. Before, when a program edit was complete, we had to transcode the output and move it manually over the network to the old playout system. Now, it goes into Avid Interplay and is automatically copied onto the Cablecast server, with no manual effort.

PUBLISH ONCE

The tight integration between Cablecast and Carousel was a big plus for us. We already liked Carousel, but there was no integration with our old system. Now, by combining Carousel with Cablecast, we can do “Coming up Next” announcements on our channel and automatically publish our programming schedule to both our website and our bulletin board. It’s so much easier and takes a lot less time and resources, as we don’t have to create our schedule twice in two unrelated products.

Before we got Cablecast, we needed multiple products to do everything we wanted—one for automation and play-out, one for VOD publishing, another for our Roku channel, a downstream character generator for live bugs and crawls, and so on. Cablecast has allowed us to bring it all together in an integrated solution that saves us time and money, and as its capabilities expand with each new software update, we’re able to eliminate additional legacy systems.

We recently started using the new Cablecast Screenweave apps, which let us easily bring our content to Apple TV and Roku devices. Our traditional cable delivery still appeals to our older audience, but we want to connect with millennials who are using OTT and cutting the cord. We already offered our live stream on Roku, but Screenweave lets us do both live and VOD, as well as expanding onto Apple TV. The fully-automated Screen-weave workflow is very efficient, pulling content directly from our Cablecast Flex server with no transcoding needed.

I’m really glad that we chose Cablecast as our automation solution. It’s very easy for our staff to use, and it has provided huge time and cost savings. Tightrope is constantly adding features that PEG channels are looking for, and always looking at innovative ways of enabling us to provide new services to our viewers.

Alan Bozeman is Communications Director at the City of Murfreesboro, TN, and has worked with the city’s government access channel for 25 years. He can be reached atabozeman@murfreesborotn.gov.

For more information about Cablecast, visitwww.cablecast.tvor call 866-866-4118.

BILLERICA, MASS.— Non-profit public, educational and government (PEG) access broadcaster Billerica Access Television (BATV) provides local residents with a compelling mix of community-created and station-produced programming. Like many PEG stations, we are concerned that viewers who “cut the cord” won’t see our content anymore. As such, offering our programming online is crucial.

When we replaced our station’s aging automation and playout system two years ago, tightly integrated streaming functionality was a big part of our purchase decision. We already offered online VOD through our previous system, but only in standard definition, and our VOD offerings were not mobile-friendly. We wanted to improve our online audience’s viewing experiences, delivering our content in HD through a better interface while also offering live streaming of all three of our channels for the first time.

We chose the Cablecast community media platform as the heart of our operations, deploying Cablecast Flex 4 and Flex Lite servers for our cable channels; Cablecast Live and Cablecast VOD solutions for creating our live streams and on-demand clips; and the cloud-based Cablecast Reflect service for reliably delivering our streams to web and mobile viewers.

Cablecast’s elegant online presentation and tightly-integrated publishing workflow were key factors in our decision. We looked at the public-facing VOD interfaces of all of the automation providers and liked Cablecast the best, and I can make our content available online without a lot of additional work. When I add a show to our schedule, I can also add it to our VOD library with one click, and indicate whether the show is permitted to be included in our live stream. The Cablecast platform automatically encodes the content and publishes it to our website, with nothing else I need to do.

Cablecast Reflect then delivers both our live streams and VOD clips to the public, minimizing the impact on our local network while ensuring reliability for our viewers. Reflect intelligently caches the content to the cloud the first time it is requested, taking the bandwidth burden off our own connection. The internet connectivity at our facility is not always reliable, so if we didn’t use a cloud-based service, I imagine the viewer experience would be dreadful at times. With Cablecast Reflect, we don’t have to worry about it. We know that we can serve as many viewers as want to see our streams even for our most popular programs, and no matter what, our content will stream out cleanly for them. While our previous system also delivered our VOD clips through the cloud, Cablecast Reflect has again proven superior. Our streams start up faster with no buffering before or during the stream, all while improving the visual quality of our content through HD delivery.

Now that we are reliably streaming live in HD, we have started encouraging people to watch our channels online. We’re currently only able to offer SD on our cable channels but our HD streams look beautiful, and we want viewers to see our content at its best.

As our audience’s viewing habits continue to evolve, we plan to add more Cablecast services to reach viewers the way they prefer. We’ll soon add Cablecast Screenweave, the cloud-based service and apps that let us effortlessly bring our live channels and VOD content to Apple TV and Roku devices.

Kayla Creamer is programming coordinator at BATV. She can be reached atkayla@batvinc.org.

For more information about Cablecast, call 866-866-4118 or visitwww.cablecast.tv.

 MINNEAPOLIS-- Tightrope Media Systems recently introduced v6.5 of its Cablecast Community Media platform, with a new content analytics feature designed to help PEG broadcasters improve viewers online experiences.

The new v6.5 integrates Google Analytics with websites built on Cablecast’s “public site” web publishing tools and delivers data -- including site traffic and trends, visitor location and page views -- to customers. The platform also includes new adaptive bitrate options for VOD which allow viewers to publish and distribute on-demand content from the Cablecast Reflect cloud-based delivery service and the Cablecast Pro VOD system.

“While some of this data was already available to users through the Cablecast interface, the new Google Analytics integration and VOD reporting capabilities help customers aggregate, analyze and view the metrics in more comprehensive and convenient ways,” said Steve Israelsky, president of Cablecast Community Media. “The improved measurement and analysis help community broadcasters better understand their audiences, enabling them to develop more successful online engagement strategies.”

The Cablecast 6.5 upgrade is scheduled for release in early October, and will be free for Cablecast customers on active support agreements.

ST. PAUL, MINN.—Government access television provider for Edison, N.J., Edison TV offers its viewers content both on cable and online. To help ensure this, the station recently replaced its older playout and automation system with the Cablecast platform from Tightrope Media Systems for visual and workflow enhancements.

Specifically, Edison TV acquired a Cablecast SXLEHD server and Cablecast Broadcast Automation software to power playout for cable broadcasts, while Cablecast Live and Cablecast VOD servers create live HD streams and on-demand clips for online and mobile viewing. Edison also brought in Tightrope’s Carousel Digital Signage software, which is able to integrate with Cablecast to manage the station’s video bulletin board.

In addition, Cablecast’s Public Site web templates helped launch a feature-rich Edison TV website that can be automatically populated with the station’s latest content.

Edison intends to use the Tightrope Cablecast system to continue its HD transition.

ST. PAUL, MINN.—HD came to local stations in Hampton Roads area of Virginia, as James City County began offering its public, education and government programming in HD with help from Tightrope Media Systems. Tightrope provided its Cablecast Flex multi-format video servers and Cablecast Broadcast Automation software to power playout for broadcaster’s HD channels.

James City County's Chief Video Engineer Randall Hisle with the new Tightrope Cablecast system.

James City County, which operates the studio in a joint venture with the City of Williamsburg, can now offer three of its four channels in both HD and SD—the county and city’s jointly-run community and education stations, and James City County TV, the county’s government station.

Two Cablecast Flex 4 servers were provided to the broadcaster for playout of the four channels plus dual simultaneous recording capabilities, while also offering two additional, configurable input or output channels for future expansion. The servers also offer integrated up/down conversion for blending existing SD content into HD channels.

In addition, James City County utilizes Tightrope’s Carousel Digital Signage software to manage the bulletin boards related to each of the county’s three channels.

Tightrope Media Systems is a provider of station automation, video servers and live streaming products and is based in St. Paul, Minn.