Crawford Expands with PlayBox

PlayBox Technology has supplied 28 AirBox playout channels to Crawford Communications, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, one of the largest broadcast and post production facilities in the Southeastern United States. With these additional channels, Crawford expands its high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) disaster recovery capabilities.

The initial interest for the PlayBox AirBox playout system arose in April from Crawford’s need for a low-cost disaster recovery solution for its clients that originate their own networks. “We soon discovered that AirBox had rock solid reliability and proved to be extremely easy to integrate in any workflow,” explains Donald Rodd, vice president of engineering and technical operations for Crawford. “The fact that we can provide a completely customized, automated and redundant backup solution to our clients at a price point less than PlayBox’s competition is a great safety net. When our clients are in a disaster recovery situation, the last thing they need to worry about is another outage.” 

To allow easy integration with the existing operations at Crawford, PlayBox ListBox software was included with the AirBoxes. This component of PlayBox’s system was key as it allowed Crawford to easily import clients’ playlists, enabling the AirBoxes to interface with a variety of traffic systems.

PlayBox is providing local support to Crawford from its recently opened corporate Atlanta office. Country Manager Van Duke comments, “Being so close is ideal for giving fast response to any needs arising as this relationship continues to evolve.” 

“The local support has increased PlayBox’s value to us tremendously,” says Jay Pound, senior systems engineer for Crawford. “Using PlayBox, we are creating digital infrastructures that virtually fulfil all of our clients’ requests. They provide a robust, feature-rich platform that has exceeded our expectations.”