Imagine Communications recently completed a major upgrade of the playout and asset management facilities for Rotana TV in Cairo, Egypt.
The project allowed Rotana TV, which broadcasts 14 discrete channels as well as time shifts and rebrands, to migrate all of its channels to HD, which allowed the playout center to operate in the file domain.
By simplifying the internal operations, the upgrade enabled Rotana TV, which was a previous customer of Imagine, to deliver output via a data stream for satellite providers Arabsat and Nilesat, and to other broadcast facilities in Europe and the United States. Rotana TV plans to move IP delivery to outlets in Canada and South America in the future.
“When we installed our original automated playout and asset management architecture in 2009, we knew it was one step in our continuing growth and that we would need to expand it in due course,” said Dr. Naser Refaat, technical services executive manager of Rotana TV. “That system has proved extremely robust and reliable, and it is very pleasing that we do not have to lose any of that capital investment as part of our upgrade.”
The upgrade used Imagine Communications Nexio Volt servers and Nexio Farad scalable online storage systems to enable the HD capabilities. Rotana TV already had Imagine Communications’ ADC playout automation and Nexio Motion digital media management, both of which were HD-ready.
For the HD, the platform provided a file-based environment that included ingest stations both within Rotana TV and remotely at the broadcaster’s facilities in Cairo’s Media Production City.
The upgrade project, with new HD channels and file-based workflows, was designed and implemented by the Imagine Communications’ regional specialist center in Dubai, and supported by Systems Design.
“Our broadcast customers are navigating various states of transition, whether migrating from tape to file, from SD to HD and beyond, or from traditional infrastructures to software-defined networks,” said Mathias Eckert, Vice President of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Imagine Communications. “We strive to provide solutions that are tailored for these transitions wherever our customers are in the process. Rotana TV, which five years ago implemented an end-to-end solution for SD playout, demonstrates this clearly.
“Today, we have upgraded it for file-based HD without compromising their existing investments in equipment and skills, and we have delivered a solution that remains future-proofed, whenever Rotana TV wants to take that next step.”
