RTI, Ivory Coast, Takes Delivery of New PlayBox CIAB
Radiodiffusion-Télévision ivoirienne (RTI), state broadcaster for the Ivory Coast, has taken delivery of a new CG titling and television playout solution from PlayBox Technology, the world’s leading manufacturer of television channel-in-a-box systems. This was installed by Brussels-based systems integrator Periactes Broadcast Solutions at RTI’s production and transmission centre in Abidjan.
“We have been using PlayBox Technology equipment very successfully for many years,” says Vénance Kouakou, Head of Operations – Digital Workflow and Maintenance, at RTI. “We transmit round the clock so reliability is obviously a major requirement. PlayBox Technology products integrate into a fully unified system which is highly stable and easy to control. This is naturally appreciated both by our production and our engineering staff. Switching between live and file-based feeds is seamless. Other very useful advantages include the system’s ability to manage incomplete clips and to automate the management of logos. This latest installation comprises three AirBox servers, each equipped with TitleBox Interactive on-air graphics, SafeBox automated content management software and Multi Backup Manager. We have also invested in a fourth AirBox and TitleBox which are being used for content preview and system testing.”
“PlayBox Technology equipment is ideally suited to the fully tapeless environment in which RTI and most other modern broadcast networks operate,” adds Baptiste de Bemels, General Manager of Periactes Broadcast Solutions. “The new AirBox and TitleBox servers are housed in the central apparatus room and will provide fully redundant protection across RTI’s two main channels, using PlayBox Multi Backup Manager and an auxiliary server with RAID5 storage. Triple hot-swappable power supplies are incorporated. These can be replaced while the channels are on air without any service interruption. We have also installed a smart video hub which can be used to switch between the two programme sources and the backup. The system is operated from the master control room.”
AirBox is a universal SD/HD content playout and streaming server designed for continuous unattended operation. Every clip in the playlist, except the one which is currently playing, can be trimmed, edited or repositioned. Playlist order can be changed on-the-fly using commands such as skip-to-next or jump. Changes are performed seamlessly without stopping current playout session. Live productions are facilitated by a Live Show clipboard which allows insertion and/or execution of various events or live streams. AirBox accepts MPEG1/2/H.264, HDV and DV streams from practically every known production platform providing AVI, MPEG, WMV, Quick Time or MXF content. Files from third-party servers such as Leitch or Seachange are natively supported.
TitleBox delivers on-air graphics which can be controlled interactively. Multi-layered simultaneous crawls, rolls, animated logos, clocks and text templates can be activated by a mouse click. TitleBox provides total control during on-air session, including text selection, running speed and transitions.
SafeBox replicates remote content to local playout server folders for safe playback. It can gather content from a number of sources automatically, when new content is available at the remote locations. SafeBox can work in playlist-dependent or stand-alone mode. In playlist-dependent mode, all file operations are slaved to schedule contents. New daily schedules are transferred along with their associated content and file paths in the playlists are automatically updated according to the new local storage. Expired daily schedule content is automatically deleted or moved to a predefined purge folder for manual deletion or archiving. Deletion can be done automatically or with user approval of deletion lists.