Sit-up TV Installs Pharos Playtime
sit-up.tv has chosen the Pharos Playtime presentation control system
Pharos Playtime Automation at Situp TV
sit-up.tv, one of Britains most successful interactive television broadcasters, has chosen the Pharos Playtime presentation control system for its innovative public-auction channel, price-drop.tv. Six Pharos workstations have been installed, with playlists, off-line scheduling, databases, hardware panels and Pharos Control Platform (PCP) interfaces.
Traditional broadcast control systems rely on a playlist of video events as their main timing reference. Pharos Playtime uses a package with independent tracks for each event sequence. Each track is displayed on the Playtime control screen as a separate timeline, typically representing main video, backup video, discrete voice-over languages, GPIs, mixer effects, logo and subtitles. Playtime enables individual schedulers to create dynamic and exciting presentation effects that could otherwise only be achieved using extensive post-production facilities.
sit-up.tv's Technical Manager, David Upton:
"Pharos systems proved more exciting, more flexible and more open than other solutions we studied. Playtime will be used on both price-drop.tv and our 24/7 infomercial channel, Screenshop. Operational and engineering training was quite straightforward. We were particularly impressed by Pharos' responsive attitude to our requirements and their ability to handle our very tight timescale: two months from purchase decision to completion!"
Launched last summer, price-drop.tv was the world's first broadcast auction channel in which the price continues falling until each group of products is sold. Watched by more than 3 million viewers every month, price-drop.tv and its companion channels - bid-up.tv and Screenshop - are broadcast from sit-up.tv's multi-million pound studios and call centre in West London. All three channels are available in over 12 million homes in Britain via Freeview terrestrial digital television.
Based in Reading, England, Pharos Communications specialises in software architecture for broadcast process control. Since its formation in 1997, the company has developed a wide range of systems for digital asset management, programme archiving, router and device control, and playout to air.
Published on 8 Mar 2004