Pharos Mediator and Playtime integrates with Miranda Xchannel
Miranda highlights integration of its new Xchannel HD/SD playout server with Pharos' media management and playout automation
Pharos and Miranda working together
Miranda Technologies will be highlighting its new Xchannel HD/SD playout server with advanced graphics at IBC (stand 8.280), which integrates tightly with Pharos Mediator 3 media management and Playtime automation. Multiple Xchannel playout servers will be demonstrated under Pharos control at IBC.
"This integration by Miranda and Pharos represents one of the most powerful and cost effective multi-channel playout solutions on the market, combining highly efficient, file-based workflows, and uncompromised on-air graphics performance", explains Darin Crosby, Miranda's Managing Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
"The system uses Xchannel playout servers for each channel, with program and graphics content fed from centralized storage using Mediator's transfer management and database. This IT-oriented architecture can significantly reduce the amount of video hardware required, and yields a highly competitive cost per channel."
The Xchannel 'channel-in-a-box'; is available with single or dual HD/SD outputs in a robust 3RU frame, and provides up to 600 hours of local playout for program content, commercials and interstitials.
Advanced graphics capabilities include a powerful HD/SD character generator, which offers virtually unlimited layers of animated text and dynamically updated text. Other graphics features include sophisticated, multi-level animation and stills playout, and a dual channel DVE for picture-in-picture and squeeze-and-reveal type transitions. Xchannel also provides integral A/B video switching with cuts, fades and wipe transitions, as well as four group audio support (16 embedded channels and up to 8 AES inputs).
Multiple Xchannels can be controlled by a single Pharos Playtime controller. Playtime automation uses a unique 'package' mechanism to enable graphic scene elements to update themselves dynamically, based on schedule cues, external data sources, or pre-defined business logic. Secondary events, such as DVE sequences, can be set up and repeated as required, with drag and drop editing across multi-channel timeline views, allowing flexible control of multiple Xchannels by a single operator.
Miranda's Xstudio graphics authoring application for Xchannel integrates neatly with the Pharos applications, and offers intuitive production of branding and promotional templates, along with data interfacing for applications such as weather updates, news crawls, and schedule-driven automated promos.
'Mediator manages ingest, workflow, and storage management, including archive and post production, to ensure that content is sent efficiently to the right Xchannel in the correct format and at the appropriate time' says Russell Grute at Pharos.
'Combining Playtime with the new Xchannel provides highly flexible and resilient multi-channel presentation of HD/SD video, audio and dynamic multi-layer graphics.'
Published on 24 Aug 2007