Pebble Beach automation installed at Deutsche Welle TV

Pebble Beach Systems has installed a multi-channel Neptune automation system at Deutsche Welle Television (DW-TV) in Berlin.
This forms part of the DW-TV’s move towards tapeless news production and playout. DW-TV plays out one 24-hour rolling news channels from three server-based studios to viewers all over the world, in German, English and Spanish.
Studio Hamburg MCI, the Hamburg based systems integrator, is the prime contractor for this project.
Neptune controls 28 Omneon server ports, two Sony Betacarts and eight external VTRs. The system consists of two main device controllers and two backup controllers, three transmission clients, one ingest client, one main housekeeper with SQL server database and one backup housekeeper. Rundowns will be imported from DW-TV’s Newswire newsroom system and automatically converted into the Pebble Beach playlists. Playout is controlled from client stations’ in the studios where multiple decoders are available to each rundown and operators are able to start events at any time. To ease the transition to server-based playout, Pebble Beach provided DW-TV with “Betacart like” control of the Omneon server.
“We considered many automation systems available on the market and chose Pebble Beach for its ability to use the same client application to handle everything in the gallery,“ said Gerald Kampe, project manager, DW-TV. “Neptune simplifies the news workflow and allows operators to control the news playout from an Omneon server via an easy to use interface.”
“DW-TV required a solution that allowed them to easily transition to a tapeless environment and make use of existing equipment,” said Peter Hajittofi, managing director, Pebble Beach Systems. “This announcement highlights our company’s ability to deliver easy to use, flexible and robust systems that meet the needs of broadcasters now and into the future.”
(GB)