Court TV "Live" With Sundance Digital

(October 20, 2003) New York, NY--Court TV recently went "live" from its new digital master control facility with a fully redundant Sundance Digital FastBreak Automation solution. Sundance worked with Joe Schwinghammer, vice president, engineering at Court TV, and systems integrator A. F Associates on the project.

The new facility relies on a redundant two-channel FastBreak Automation system that drives three Profile XP video servers: two PVS 1026s for play-to-air, and one PVS 1044 for ingesting the content. Court TV's FastBreak Automation system is also integrated with an advanced digital asset management and an Avalon Archive solution linked to an ADIC Scaler 10K robotic archive.

The system configuration includes a main Air Station and Sundance's ListSync backup air station to play out Court TV's east- and west-coast feeds. ListSync adds an additional level of realtime system redundancy that automatically and instantaneously updates the back-up playlist for a seamless transfer of control. Playlist changes are reflected on both stations without manual intervention on the backup.

"Court TV's on-air product is much more consistent using FastBreak Automation," said Rob Pumo, senior vice president, operations. "Discrepancies have decreased significantly."

"I really like the fact that Sundance wrote a translator for the DNF 3040 controller," said Schwinghammer. "We use the 3040 to drive an output port on our ingest server. This provides another layer of redundancy to an already robust solution."

In addition, the system controls two Grass Valley Group 2100 master control switchers, two Chyron Duet LEXs, and two Leitch Logomotions for on-air graphics, EEG encoders for V-Chip, and two Evertz back-up switchers. FastBreak Automation interfaces with Court TV's existing VCI traffic software.

Sundance Digital
www.sundancedigital.com