Kanal 1 And Habertürk Playout With PlayBox

PlayBox Technology Turkey has supplied and installed complete playout systems for two Turkish National TV channels, Kanal 1 and Habertürk - both part of CINER Media Group.
This continues a long-standing relationship with CINER Media Group that has used PlayBox Technology for its playout for over four years. Kanal 1 and Habertürk are expanding into a new Istanbul location with multiple, fully redundant, PlayBox Technology servers supporting playout and studio operations.
CINER Media Group's Istanbul city centre production and post production centre has six studios and a total studio area of 1200 square metres. All cable routing and electronics are on one floor of the building allowing flexible operation with SDI and IT networks. This powerful infrastructure enables CINER Media Group to be at the cutting edge of technology and able to meet any diverse programme requirements.
Eight fully redundant AirBox playout servers handle all the internal and external playout requirements for the two channels. These are configured as two mirrored pairs operating in each of the MCRs for Kanal 1 and Habertürk, with single AirBox servers operating with the production studios. This fulfils the requirement for a compact playout facility offering simple operation.
The playout solutions for both channels also integrate with a number of third-party systems as well as other PlayBox modules. These systems include an internally developed text-based newsroom system for news automation and a Metus Library system that provides archiving for news and other programme material that is available for future programme use. The Commercials Department uses PlayBox's ListBox to create commercial break playlists, also in the Programme Department ListBox is used for the control and monitoring of commercial breaks.
All AirBox playout is usually from local AirBox storage and the transfer and synchronisation of the media files throughout the workflow is orchestrated by SafeBox, installed on each AirBox, ensuring that the right media files are in the right place at the right time: up to transmission and beyond.
However, in urgent situations, such as breaking news, files may be played directly from the network. After broadcast, files that have archive value are imported to the PlayBox Metus Library system and archived. News graphics are handled by custom programs developed for Inscriber RTX and Orad. There is also a TitleBox in news that is used for quick inserts and as a backup for Orad.
As both Kanal 1 and Habertürk are well-established channels, the project includes integration with existing equipment and handling a wide variety of sources to offer a completely automated workflow solutions.
Studios, MCRs and production studios are fully equipped with high-tech infrastructure. The technical team, lead by Mr Semih Kaya (General Manager - Technical), designed and implemented all the systems without resourcing. There is tapeless operation over the whole system that is integrated with IT infrastructure. Network infrastructure is well planned for the whole building with a minimum of 1Gb Ethernet connection available for all workstation and a 10Gb backbone provides high capacity transfers in a non-blocking state. Multiple storage servers operate under DFS allowing users controlled access to necessary files with DFS user rights management.
Further information is available at: www.playbox.tv.
(KMcA/JM)