MINNEAPOLIS—Tightrope Media Systems has upgraded its Cablecast Community Media broadcast automation, playout, and content publishing platform that adds greater flexibility and efficiency in how PEG broadcasters store and distribute media content. The new Smart Asset Manager (SAM) feature automates content archiving, backup, and retrieval to simplify video server storage management, while the new Cablecast REFLECT+ delivery service combines the robust delivery benefits of the Cablecast REFLECT CDN with the ability to store all VOD content in the cloud.

Tightrope will highlight SAM, Cablecast REFLECT+, and other Cablecast advances in suite 739 at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel during the 2022 NAB Show, April 24-27.

Tightly integrated into the Cablecast automation software, SAM intelligently moves or copies content between the video server and alternative storage locations such as a SAN (storage area network), NAS (network attached storage) or cloud storage. Rules-based archiving automatically moves content to archive storage if it is not scheduled to be used within a user-specified number of days, while SAM’s rules-based backup feature copies media files to a designated file store for safekeeping. Users can also manually trigger the archiving of an individual show. Automatic archive retrieval brings assets back onto the playout server when they are needed based on the program schedule, minimizing user effort and helping avoid errors related to missing media.

“Community media organizations’ content libraries eventually grow beyond their video server’s storage capacity, but manually moving content off and back onto the server is time-consuming and labor-intensive,” said Steve Israelsky, President, Cablecast Community Media. “Smart Asset Manager is designed to make archiving and retrieving content painless, flexible, and efficient.”

While Tightrope’s original Cablecast REFLECT delivery service automatically caches content in the cloud when it is first requested from the on-premises VOD server, the new Cablecast REFLECT+ allows users to easily push some or all of their media into cloud storage even before it is first accessed. Customers can use as little or as much cloud storage as they want, with user-configurable rules—for example, all shows from the past month, or all council meetings and high school sports from the current year—automatically pushing matching VOD content to the cloud. A web-based dashboard allows administrators to monitor cloud storage usage.

“Customers love Cablecast REFLECT’s ability to reliably and cost-effectively deliver live streams and VOD content with rich metadata to audiences of any size through Cablecast’s turnkey web pages, OTT and mobile apps. However, some organizations want to further isolate their media delivery away from their own network,” said Israelsky. “Cablecast REFLECT+ provides all of this same powerful functionality and adds the scalability and flexibility of cloud storage while keeping everything outside the local network.”

Cablecast REFLECT+ is offered as an optional service with pricing based on tiered storage capacities. The original Cablecast REFLECT service continues to be available for media organizations who want the scalable delivery advantages of the REFLECT CDN but prefer the economics of on-premises storage.

The Smart Asset Manager is a standard feature of v7.5 of the Cablecast software, slated for release by the end of April. The upgrade to v7.5 is free for Cablecast FLEX and Cablecast VIO customers on active software assurance agreements. The optional Cablecast REFLECT+ service also requires the Cablecast 7.5 software.

STERLING & LANCASTER, MA.--Mixing sound for a town meeting broadcast may seem simple and even dry compared to, say, a rock concert, but it carries very real challenges: some attendees speak very softly while others hardly need a microphone. People stand up and speak from different locations in the room. Distributing enough mics to capture every situation can mean lots of cables or lots of wireless channels — either of which would require on-site management in a roomful of audio non-professionals.

Sterling-Lancaster Community Television, which provides public, educational, and government-access programming to the eponymous Massachusetts towns, found the perfect solution in a system based around the Yamaha TF-RACK digital mixer with the NY64-D Dante I/O option. It receives all needed audio channels via a single Cat 6 Ethernet connection, matches their levels automatically, and is remotely controlled from the nearby offices of SLC TV in a separate building.

“I first became aware of the TF-RACK when our Yamaha rep left one with us for a couple of weeks,” says Mike Berardinangelo of Access A/V, the systems integrator who worked with SLC TV on the installation. “I also knew the town of Lancaster had recently converted an old school into a town hall and was ready to start using it. Sterling-Lancaster TV wanted to broadcast all the meetings but run everything in real time from their control room about a block and a half away.

“We went with a Shure ceiling array that has eight aimable mics in one. That has a Cat 6 output, which plugs into a PoE [power over Ethernet] gigabit switch,” he explains. “The TF-RACK plugs into the switch as well. Its output is also configured via the Dante standard for audio-over-network, then run over fiber optics between the two buildings.”

“In the control room, we have the TF Editor software running on a Mac desktop computer,” says Chris Detsikas, executive director of SLC TV. “The eight channels show up there, and we can mix everything remotely. All anyone in the town hall meeting room has to do is turn on the power for the rack that the TF lives in. There are no other cables in the room besides that one Cat 6, and it’s out of sight.”

To handle the matter of different voices, Detsikas relies on the Dan Dugan Speech System automated mixing capability of the TF-RACK.

“That’s really just an awesome feature to have when some people in a meeting are very soft-spoken and others are just booming. You can set up different scenes for different applications, of course, but I have simple scene that basically says, ‘Make everyone the same volume.’ It just keeps the gain structure for every channel perfect, where usually you’d need someone riding faders on a console for this. The TF-RACK has incredible EQ of its own, but I find I can run everything pretty flat and only reach for the EQ if someone’s voice is very unusual.”

One would think that leaving the on-site system unattended might be a recipe for disaster, but Detsikas finds that the automation and ease of use of the TF-RACK not only saves him the worry, but even helps balance his budget. “In the past, we always had to hire extra people to go into the meetings and manage the sound and video,” he says. “Now we can do it all remotely, and I only need a couple of people to do a meeting, not three or four. The TF-RACK is very ‘set it and forget it,’ and once we set it, it doesn’t matter who stands up, what they sound like, and where they’re speaking from in the room — we gotcha!”

Despite the TF-RACK being very feature-rich, Detsikas considers its best feature to be that he can essentially forget it’s there: “I have broadcast levels I have to think about on the outgoing end. I don’t want to babysit my production mix, and with the TF-RACK I don’t have to. It just gets out of my way.”

In the near future, Detsikas plans to construct a similar setup for the town of Sterling, as well as bring another Lancaster meeting room through the same mixer. “We have two other rooms that feed into this control room. I’m hoping to patch one into that TF-RACK — say, channels 9 through 16 — so I can keep mixing this room on 1 through 8. With all the busing the TF can do, I could be mixing both at the same time and send separate stereo feeds to separate video switchers for broadcast.”

Whatever else Detsikas’ plans may be for the TF-RACK, he knows he has plenty of time to make them: “If Yamaha comes out with a board, people are going to use it for 10 or 15 years or more. You know it’s a rock.”

Top picture: (L to R): Sterling-Lancaster's Community Television Crew: Matt Downing, Production & Outreach Manager; Emmanuel Ortiz, Studio Coordinator; Chris Detsikas, Executive Director & Melissa Jellie, Access Coordinator