Grass Valley Deploys Facility-Wide Playout SAN

The Netherlands division of SBS/ProSiebenSat.1 Group is upgrading its entire content playout platform to handle and distribute high-definiton content playout platform to handle and distribute high-definition content with a new investment in a storage area network (SAN) based on Grass Valley K2 Summit server technology.
The ongoing migration project will debut on air in Q4 2009.
The significant order was placed in April during the NAB convention and includes five Grass Valley K2 Summit HD production clients for ingest and playout, connected to the new online SAN. Grass Valley system engineers will also provide consultancy to configure the K2 system.
The K2 equipment, now delivered, will be implemented in the Amsterdam facility in the next two months, following the completion of a major renovation of the facility's multi-channel playout area to HD.
Josbert van Rooijen, Manager of Broadcast & IT, SBS Netherlands, said: "Grass Valley offered us an attractive upgrade path for our playout activities that was both economical and fairly easy to implement without affecting our on-air operations.
"As we continue to grow our business, we appreciate the fact that Grass Valley has been there to help us along the way with first-rate engineering and customer service support. We expect this relationship to continue."
Jeff Roscia, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley, said: "As customers transition to HD content delivery, the move to the Grass Valley K2 media server platform has proven to be easy and highly cost-effective. SBS is a long-time, highly-valued customer that has led its markets by using a flexible platform based on Grass Valley server technology."
The choice of the Grass Valley K2 Summit offers SBS Netherlands the flexibility to work with various SD and HD formats in the same server, ensuring a fast and smooth transition. SBS is now replacing several existing Grass Valley Profile XP media platform servers with the new K2 servers. These Profile servers have been in operation for more than ten years.
In 2008, SBS converted its studio to HD operation with the addition of a Grass Valley Ignite HD integrated production system.
SBS Netherlands operates three main TV channels in the country: SBS 6, Net 5 and Veronica.
(KMcA/BMcC)