Pharos Mediator chosen for Ascent Media Networks European Media Centre
Ascent Media has chosen Pharos as a technology partner to expand the range of content management services at its in Stephen Street facility in central London
We needed a solution that would enable Ascent to continue moving forward without interrupting ongoing operations. Pharos Mediator meets all our current business requirements and gives us the flexibility to expand into new forms of delivery
Andrew Hull - VP Broadcast Systems and Networks, Ascent Media
Roger Henderson (left) with Roger Heath looks forward to expanding Ascent's service through becoming more process driven. Photograph courtesy of TVB Europe
Ascent Media has chosen Pharos as a technology partner to expand the range of content management services at its Stephen Street facility in central London. Integrated into the existing workflow, Mediator will enable migration to a more process-driven operation by reorganising many of Ascent's existing business processes. Pharos is working closely with Ascent Media's operations and technical teams on all stages of the project to deliver the first phase system in a short time scale. The new system is fully HD compatible.
"The further investment in the Media Centre represents continued growth in advanced solutions for our clients and builds an even stronger foundation for our move into the truly tapeless future," comments Roger Henderson, Ascent Media's MD and Senior VP, Content Distribution. "Our digital archive and distribution strategy will enable Ascent to deliver an even wider range and greater scale of services than we are currently able to support. The Media Centre is fully HD-compatible and capable of ingesting SD, ASI and HD to support long-form programmes as well as short-form interstitials. It has full satellite downlinking integration and connectivity to other Ascent Media sites in New York, Los Angeles and Singapore."
"A key objective to the technical design was to create an inherently resilient system based around commodity IT processes and components," adds Andrew Hull, VP Broadcast Systems and Networks at Ascent. "It was also important to achieve a solution that would enable Ascent to continue moving forward without interrupting ongoing operations. Pharos met the challenge with its powerful Mediator content management and workflow platform. Mediator meets all our current business requirements and gives us the flexibility to expand into new forms of delivery. Key requirements included automated and accelerated ingest, electronic file processing and the ability to handle multiple languages more efficiently. Mediator includes efficient quality control and allows clients to view their material remotely. Crucially, it gives us a platform for integrating a large digital library."
"Ascent Media set out to enhance their capabilities in the Media Centre and to expand the services it could offer to existing and new clients," comments Russell Grute from Pharos. "Using Mediator will improve efficiencies for the high quality playout services that Ascent offers and enable expansion beyond playout by providing services for new media. Mediator's new user interface with enhanced browse and search tools may help attract new customers to Ascent; it is easy to upgrade workflows whilst in operation and extremely user-friendly. Contracts were agreed and signed at the end of July and project rollout on site commenced in August. The first phase is expected to be operational by mid September. Ascent and Pharos will continue working in close partnership to achieve the Phase One operational milestones".
Ascent Media Network Services (AMNS) specialises in network origination, content distribution and systems consulting, engineering, integration and support, with content distribution facilities in Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Stamford, CT; Minneapolis, MN; London, England and Singapore. AMNS is part of Santa Monica, CA-based Ascent Media Group which provides a wide range of services to the media entertainment industries and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Discovery Holding Company (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB). For further information, visit www.ascentmedia.com.
Pharos delivers better workflow management to broadcasters and service-providers in television, radio, IPTV and telecommunications. For 11 years Pharos has continually developed its unique Mediator, Playtime and Pilot desktop broadcast management solutions. Pharos workflow offers greater efficiency for library management, ingest, quality control, storage management, archival, transcoding, post-production and playout. Pharos solutions offer a next-generation platform to manage multiformat content and enable rapid expansion in playout, presentation and publishing. Pharos software architecture, integration and support services enable disparate broadcast and IT processes to be unified across the enterprise.
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Published on 23 Sep 2008