The broadcast industry has always been an asset-intensive business characterised by heavy, expensive and complicated equipment throughout the video content production lifecycle.
This is particularly relevant with the distribution and video management aspect of broadcasting.
However, all this is changing with Graphic Image Technologies (GITs) announcement of the local availability of the TAG V.S MCM-9000U.
Although the solution may have a cumbersome name, its agility and ability to simplify operations will revolutionise the South African TV and broadcast industry.
Mark Chertkow, MD of Graphic Image Technologies, says: “Organisations will now be able to move from a massively expensive and resource intensive hardware-dominated Mosaicing and Monitoring solution, to a software-defined, IP-based environment that is a lot more flexible and cost effective.”
The TAG V.S. MCM-9000U streamlines operation for a multi-viewer and monitoring solution with support for multiple formats on a unified platform, including compressed, uncompressed and over the top (OTT).
The video management solution automatically scans networks, detects services, and offers simple drag and drop configuration capabilities for a totally customisable visual mosaic that’s viewable from anywhere, including mobile devices.
With a flexible combination of software-based multi-viewers and probes, TAG has delivered an industry-changing Content Delivery Network Monitoring solution that is capable of monitoring multiple video streams for error detection, issuing automated alerts, reports and recordings.
“The Master Control Room is about to get a lot smaller,” Chertkow says, “as for the first time ever in the industry, the facilitation of uncompressed SMPTE 2110-21 outputresults in superior picture quality at the mosaic output, which is also viewable via MPEG TS and HLS output even on a browser or mobile. Essentially 4K-UHD, this solution delivers more viewing real estate by fitting more tiles on the screen while reducing the overall number of screens, interface devices and cabling required for monitoring.”
Monitored channels or services output displays offer rich, informative data overlays that perform critical tasks of real-time error detection and alerts. This solution can scale as necessary according to the broadcaster’s requirements without changing equipment and is capable of receiving large quantities of uncompressed sources and displaying them on the same screen.
“The industry is now able to take advantage of simplicity and cost savings that were previously unheard of, which will allow broadcasters and content distributors to gain the competitive edge as technology continues to mature.
“Because it’s software-based, broadcasters can now simply pay a license fee per channel running on generic server hardware which can be scaled as needed, offering new levels of flexibility in addition to the complete simplification and automation of the monitoring function and the elimination of costly monitoring hardware from the equation,” Chertkow concludes.