Playout Automation

wTVision celebrates 10 years of partnership with TV Globo!September 21, 2015

Over the past 10 years, wTVision has been consolidating the development of several solutions to Globo, the largest opentelevision network in Latin America. This partnership started in 2005 when wTVision presented Slides CG, a customizable platform that allows a rapid and effective implementation of graphics solutions for programs such as sports and news.  With this step, the client aspired to finally develop projects in a centralized way, standardizing processes and models, horizontally. In 2010 TV Globo presented a new project to wTVision:  the creation of a new channel distribution center in Portugal, where two customized channels replaced the single existing feed that was serving the regions of Europe and Africa. At this moment, wTVision’s involvement transcended the supply of the technical infrastructure, adding the responsibility of the technical design, the facilities rental, resources hiring and management, and the distribution of the inputted signal, becoming the prime contractor of this project. At the center of the technical structure was wTVision’s playout system, ChannelMaker. In 2012 a new channel joined this distribution center, summing at that time a total of three channels under wTVision’s responsibility. Five years later new challenges came up.  "There was the need to expand the distribution center with the addition of two more channels, Globo Japan and the Globo ON. It was also time to upgrade all wTVision’s hardware and software, ensuring a more efficient workflow with cutting-edge technologies. This way, the entire production structure was transferred from SD to HD 1080i, bringing Globo multimedia distribution center to the forefront of technology" says Paulo Ferreira, Sales Director of wTVision. By choosing the full integration of wTVision’s software for the video and playout workflow, TV Globo managed to achieve the desired scalability for the future and the delivery of the project within 90 days. A team of four engineers have worked together during this period, performing the installation of a total of 10 channel-in-a-box systems for a total of 5 channels, each with a video server, a graphic platform and a playout controller (ChannelMaker Playout), all with full redundancy. For the scheduling, wTVision installed, ChannelMaker Sequencer a tool that allows multi-sequencing. It is now possible to manage the rundowns of all channels from a single station. On this project, wTVision also provided its wTVision Media Tools in which are included the wTVision Media Ingester andwTVision Media Trimmer. In addition to these tools, the ecosystem also has the wTVision’s MAM system (wTVision Media Manager). This system allows the detection of new files on the network, their automatic cataloging and automatic transfers (viaMedia Agent). Search, browse, transfers monitoring and manual cataloging are made through a MAM web interface. Since this project was planned to work in SAN, both ingest and trim processes as well as the playout of clips are made directly from the central storage, avoiding the transfer of files to the video servers for playout. The central storage is redundant making automatic mirroring between main and backup, ensuring that the data remains safe in case of any catastrophe. Each system has a capacity of more than 140TB. To ensure the quality and reliability needed to TV Globo, two database clusters, were also added to this workflow, each one composed of two systems that also work redundantly. Besides all the software component that supports all the channel distribution center, wTVision was also the company responsible for all the engineering design, the purchase of equipment/hardware, the change and installation of the structure on a new physical space and the recruitment and training of all the human resources.  wTVision accomplished the initial assumption:  the delivery of a turn-key project, with a premium end-to-end service.