Major UK Playout Facility Goes Interactive with Pharos Playtime
On of Britains foremost playout facilities has added online voting and advanced graphics handling to the portfolio of services it is able to offer its clients
On of Britain's foremost playout facilities has added online voting and advanced graphics handling to the portfolio of services it is able to offer its clients. Pharos Playtime Interactive and Mediator media management form the core of an automated system allowing flexible and efficient online audience-participation. The system is being implemented on a new channel played to air from London.
An expansion of the facility's existing Pharos installation, Playtime Interactive enables viewers to vote online for their preference among a series of short clips. Voting status is displayed via automatically-controlled graphics showing the relative popularity of each clip. The clip chosen by the majority of voters is then transmitted at the end of the programme. Pharos Mediator controls main and backup video playback from Omneon video servers as well as graphics and text. Mediator also controls the transfer of voiceover files from a file server, allocating to each file a specific ID, its timing offset in relation to the start of the programme, the playback duration and a duck level in decibels.
Playtime uses the 'package' concept unique to Pharos. Each package contains independent tracks for every element required to make up the presented playout. Each track can be displayed on the Playtime control screen as a separate timeline, typically representing main video, backup video, discrete voiceover languages, GPIs, mix/effects, logo and subtitles.
With Playtime Interactive, tracks based on broadcaster-definable rules allow interactive non-linear presentation, offering tremendous creative opportunity to programme designers. The system operates at multiple levels, selecting appropriate voiceover and graphic content, for example, to accompany a clip chosen by a majority of viewers.
Playtime Interactive also enables channel promotions to be kept fully up to date with little or no scheduling. The concept is to record many different voiceover modules and integrate them as appropriate. Next-event-to-air can be based on aggregated audience feedback or other data. Playtime Interactive can also be used to manage audience reactions and playout from live studios.
The Pharos Mediator media asset management system enables workflow to be monitored and tracked across a large media centre. It performs completely automated ingest using predefined profiles to simplify initial content capture. Current systems tend to be centred on machine-based tasks. Pharos Mediator is media-centric, enabling users to focus on the actual programme content rather than having to supervise the devices performing the processing. Web-based user interfaces have enabled this change, allowing flexible non-linear workflow.
Based in Reading, England, Pharos Communications (www.pharos-comms.com) is focused on software architecture for broadcast process management. Since its formation in 1997, the company has developed a wide range of systems for automating the flow of material through broadcast facilities including playout presentation, media asset management, archiving, and facility management.
Published on 2 Jul 2006