At the upcoming NAB 2009 Show, UK-based Pebble Beach Systems (booth #SU11402) will demonstrate enhanced flexibility and multichannel capabilities for its Neptune automation system. New features include “floating lists‚” global timers and multi time-zone support, as well as further expansion of the company’s media management tool called Anchor.
The floating lists feature allows any channel to be played from any physical playlist, which is then automatically routed to the right output. The system is aware of the available hardware and can automatically determine whether the broadcast equipment can support SD, HD or both. By enabling the sharing of playlists between channels, broadcasters can more easily manage priorities in the event of failures and make best use of the available resources. The management of multichannel playout is also simplified by the addition of global timers, which provide accurate timing information across all channels. The recently added multi time-zone support allows users to work with either local or remote time zones.
Pebble Beach has also added new enhancements to its Anchor Media Manager for further integrated archive control. Improved rules-based media and workflow management enables broadcasters to combine large-scale, IT-based storage systems with broadcast specific technologies. Mixed architectures — which combine third-party archive and media platforms together with the company’s own archive system — allow for legacy archive control by a third-party system while the nearline store and other media movements are being completed with Anchor.
