MINNEAPOLIS—Tightrope Media Systems has announced that it is taking over as the owner of PegMedia.org, a public access media exchange site, from PegMedia Inc. As the new owner, Tightrope will handle all operations and development of PegMedia.org while continuing to provide low-cost content sharing between community media organizations and producers.

Through PegMedia.org, content producers can make their programming available to multiple PEG TV stations simultaneously, while also giving stations access to a range of programming to fill out their channels.

According to Robert Nichols, who founded PegMedia Inc. in 2007 in Maine, PegMedia.org has a growing library of more than 35,000 videos that PEG stations can access for an undisclosed transfer fee. Today, PegMedia.org reportedly has thousands of users across the U.S. and internationally.

“Being under the Tightrope umbrella will ensure its long-term survival and growth,” said Nichols. “With a whole team of passionate PEG experts from operations and engineering to marketing, Tightrope is well positioned to take what I started to the next level.”

Despite operating Cablecast Community Media, Tightrope says it plans to continue to make PegMedia.org available to PEG stations regardless of which hardware or software solutions they use. Tightrope will also work to help grow the site’s user base to continue to add to the available content.

“We are honored that Robert is entrusting us to continue what he started,” said Steve Israelsky, president, Cablecast Community Media. “PegMedia.org provides a valuable service to the PEG community, and we very much want it to continue to succeed. With our large nationwide customer base, close relationships with the PEG industry at large and our planned efforts to promote PegMedia.org, we believe we can significantly expand its active user base. We look forward to further developing the PegMedia.org service while keeping it affordable and widely accessible.”

For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

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—Tightrope Media Systems has a new tool for local government and other users attempting to share virtual meetings in this era of social distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic, Screenweave LIVE.

Screenweave LIVE is a cloud-based service for bringing live feeds from Zoom and other web-based conferencing services into the Cablecast Community Media platform for cable television, online, OTT and social media distribution.

Tightrope found that there was a missing link between v7.1 of its Cablecast platform, which can ingest an RTMP stream for broadcast or recording, and Zoom, which can output an RTMP stream. It needed an intermediary RTMP server. This is solved by Screenweave LIVE, the company says, without needing additional hardware or changes to a station’s network configuration or firewall.

Screenweave LIVE is deployed in the cloud and receives a live RTMP stream from an RTMP streaming platform, then delivers it to a Cablecast VIO or Cablecast Flex video server with v7.1 software; it can also be sent to the Carousel Bulletin Board software for users with earlier versions of Cablecast hardware or software. The Cablecast Broadcast Automation software can then record or broadcast a live feed on the station’s cable channel, while Cablecast Live, Cablecast Pro VOD and Screenweave OTT options can automatically publish live streams or on-demand clips. Screenweave LIVE can also simulcast the RTMP stream to Facebook Live and YouTube Live.

According to Steve Israelsky, president of Cablecast Community Media, Screenweave LIVE can be a helpful tool to local governments that want to provide access to important government meetings.

Tightrope provides instructions on how to use Screenweave LIVE in the Open Broadcaster Software for conferencing solutions that do not offer a native RTMP output. It is also available on the Cablecast COVID-19 portal.

Screenweave Live is available on a subscription basis. For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.  

MINNEAPOLIS—Tightrope Media Systems has upgraded the software for its Cablecast Community Media broadcast automation, playout and content publishing platform, officially announcing Cablecast version 7.1.

The Cablecast 7.1 update adds expanded IP input and closed captioning functionality, as well as SSL (Secure Socket Layer) support for securing web content portals. V7.1 also provides many features of Cablecast’s seventh-generation software to users of earlier Cablecast Flex servers after previously only being available on new Cablecast VIO video servers.

With its new support for sidecar caption files, Cablecast 7.1 can add closed captions to individual programs or complete libraries of existing file-based content. When media files are sent out for captioning, they return as editable sidecar files in MCC or SCC formats. The files can then be applied to corresponding media in Cablecast.

The SSL support in v7.1 comes through Let’s Encrypt, a free open certificate authority from the Internet Security Research Group, for conforming to today’s web security standards. With SSL, content portals powered by Cablecast’s “public site” web publishing templates can be securely browsed and can promote secure embed codes and streaming links for distribution.

An expanded IP input and file format support is also offered in Cablecast 7.1 that works with both Cablecast VIO an Cablecast Flex systems. Live, H.264-encoded RTP, RTMP or HLS streams can be brought directly into the system for recording or broadcast without an external decoder. Programs can also be recorded with H.264 compression, while broader codec compatibility—including VP8 and Theora—can be played out without transcoding.

For Cablecast Flex operators, they now have access to the new, broadcast-optimized Cablecast CB bulletin board software directly within the Cablecast user interface. 

Cablecast’s live channel branding capabilities are also integrated directly into v7.1’s browser-based user interface. Live branding also has greater control over individual elements and attributes, as well as having a new media file upload feature.

In addition, v7.1 has a confidence monitoring feature for Cablecast Flex and Cablecast VIO customers to see live video previews of each output within the web-based user interface.

This latest version of Cablecast Community Media’s software will be shown during the 2020 NAB Show, April 18-22 in Las Vegas, at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel.

EAGLE, COLO.—Eagle County Government Television (ECGtv) provides local residents with news and information including board of county commissioner meetings, regional transit meetings and programming highlighting life in the region.

Like most PEG stations, reaching our community beyond our cable channel to online and OTT audiences via the web and mobile devices is key. We have happily used Tightrope Media Systems’ Cablecast broadcast automation platform for many years, but until last year we had used a different vendor’s tools and services for encoding and delivering our live and on-demand streams. Frustrated with the video quality limitations and high costs, we switched to Tightrope’s cloud-based Cablecast Reflect streaming service in June 2016 and have since enjoyed significant time and cost savings.

The Cablecast platform delivers live and on-demand streams of local government meetings.

EASY TRANSITION
Working with Media Control Systems, we deployed the Cablecast Reflect service in conjunction with Tightrope’s Cablecast Live and Cablecast Pro VOD solutions to encode and deliver our online content. These tools all integrate seamlessly with our station’s core Cablecast system, enabling us to unify and simplify operations for both traditional and online distribution.

The workflow for publishing and delivering online content with Cablecast Reflect continues Tightrope’s ease of use. When we add a program to our cable schedule, we simply check a box to indicate whether we also want it streamed live or published as VOD online. We can also optionally add VOD chapter marks. The Cablecast platform automatically encodes the content and publishes it to our website (www.ecgtv.com). Cablecast Reflect then caches the content to the cloud when it’s first requested, freeing up our local bandwidth while ensuring smooth delivery for viewers.

TIME & MONEY
With our older streaming solution, we had separate broadcast and online workflows, which required a lot more work. In a two-person shop like ours, every minute saved is a big deal. Just as the overall Cablecast platform has delivered a 50 percent time savings for program scheduling versus our previous automation system, Tightrope’s integrated streaming workflow has allowed us make our content available online in half the time when compared to our previous setup.

The monetary savings we have achieved with Cablecast Reflect have been just as significant. We save roughly $10,000 annually compared to the service we previously used, while delivering a better-quality product. Tightrope lets us tweak the quality settings, but we simply use the defaults, which already look fantastic.

Cablecast Reflect’s scalability gives us practically limitless viewer accessibility. As a government organization, it’s critical that anyone who wants to watch our content can do so without issue. Cablecast Reflect works very well, delivering consistent and uninterrupted online viewing experiences every time—even when demand for a video is high.

We also use Cablecast’s included website design features and templates to build pages that are automatically populated with our videos. The intuitive tools make it easy to create pages that look consistent with the rest of our website without having to use a development API. As such, we did it ourselves without tasking our in-house programmer.

Tightrope has really thought about what PEG station operators need and what will make our lives easier.

Josh Stowell is the station manager for Eagle County Government Television, and has been with the station since 2006. He can be reached atjosh.stowell@eaglecounty.us.

For more information, visitwww.trms.comor call 866-866-4118.

LAS VEGAS—At the 2016 NAB Show, Tightrope Media Systems will showcase Cablecast 6.1, which adds a VOD Chaptering feature to its broadcast automation and playout system. With this feature, broadcasters can now insert chapter markers at important points within VOD content, such as a council meeting agenda item or the winning play of a sporting event, enabling online viewers to jump right to a particular section of interest.

The previous release, Cablecast 6.0, offered many powerful web content delivery capabilities, including the new Cablecast Public Site, which makes VOD programming and live streams accessible to online viewers. Where broadcasters have multiple channels, their viewers can switch between them—for example, public access and education—providing faster access to live and VOD content. 

This ready-to-use website features a front-end layout of a TV station’s schedule, live streams, VOD content and programming highlights, and can be used as a standalone web portal, or one integrated within the broadcaster’s existing site. Since Cablecast 6.1 functionality is built on open-source APIs, web developers can incorporate Cablecast web display features and custom applications into their own websites.

Designed for Community TV and other budget conscious broadcast operations, the Cablecast portfolio also includes Cablecast Reflect. This cloud-based service offers customers the ability to deliver Cablecast’s adaptive bitrate, H.264 streams to a virtually unlimited number of online viewers while conserving station network bandwidth. 

The 2016 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas, April 18-21. Tightrope Media Systems will be in booth SL4228. For more information, visit www.nabshow.com