Australian broadcaster Macquarie Southern Cross Media (MCSM) recently deployed a 140 HD-channel SeaChange play-to-air platform, representing one of the largest HD platforms in Australia.
MCSM installed SeaChange’s Broadcast MediaLibrary/MediaClient (BML/MCL) play-to-air platform, consisting of BML transmission storage severs and MCL software codecs, which when combined, provide the broadcaster with 60 ingest and playout channels for programming and 80 ingest and playout channels for commercials. The system is also supporting turnaround delay at MCSM.
Based in the nation’s capitol of Canberra, MCSM delivers a wide range of programming to audiences in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
The BML/MCL’s ability to play back MCSM’s legacy SD Pinnacle Mediastream files was a critical factor in the broadcaster’s decision to choose the SeaChange platform. According to Craig Armsworth, group manager for systems & digital media at Magna Systems, which is serving as integrator on the project, “The SeaChange servers are the only ones on the market that can take an SD Pinnacle file directly and replay it back out as HD, thereby upconverting it. This was a particular advantage when we took part in the server ‘shoot out.’”
