Rascular and Heartland secure second US succe w KSMQ for manual master control

Rascular and Heartland secure second US success wth KSMQ for manual master control 24 August 2015

Rascular and Heartland secure second US success wth KSMQ for manual master control

Craven Arms, UK 24th August 2015 - Rascular, the leading supplier of PC-based multi-device master control, has today announced that its flagship Helm system has been selected by Austin, MN-based PBS station KSMQ controlling Harmonic Spectrum ChannelPort and Harmonic Spectrum Server integrated playout technology. The sale is the second in the US this year and was via SI Heartland Video Systems.

Mike Schmidt, Senior Systems Engineer with Heartland, said, We have provided the Harmonic playout technology in conjunction with Rascular's manual control solution Helm. We also supplied a Utah router, multiviewer, MPEG encoder with PSIP, audio processing, patching, sync system and conversion equipment. Essentially a complete master control system.

Prior to this install, KSMQ had been outsourcing its master control to a third party. This made it difficult to do any live/local programming as the broadcaster didn't have enough control over its output. The aim of the project was to enhance the overall service with more local content.

Rascular's Helm is controlling the Harmonic Spectrum media server and Spectrum ChannelPort integrated channel playout system. Rascular's Helm system provides PC-based manual control of playout systems in a master control environment. This is achieved by consolidating complex functions across multiple, disparate devices into simple buttons on a touchscreen or PC user interface. The Helm interface can be as simple or as sophisticated as operations require and provides easy control of the on-air playout chain.

Schmidt added, Helm gives KSMQ real manual control in its new master control environment. KSMQ now has the ability to do immediate live break-ins as well as the ability to manually run very dynamic shows, like Pledge and Auction. The technology was used on the first day of going live to enhance the output and immediately showed the power of being in control.

Ephraim Barrett, Sales Director with Rascular, said, We are excited about our ability to provide an enhanced level of manual control for Harmonic's integrated playout technology and we're equally excited to be working with Heartland. Having the ability to control what's on screen at any given moment is, we believe, vital to being able to offer a dynamic service that can compete in today's broadcasting environment.

About Rascular

Rascular is a broadcast software company based in the UK. It specialises in highly evolved device control and media management tools that provide operators with direct access to third-party hardware technologies. Flagship product Helm allows customers to pick best-of-breed systems branding devices, routers, video servers, VTRs, multi-image display processors and modular gear - from a range of different manufactures and provides a single, integrated, user-defined control/monitoring surface for operators. Helm, along with Commander, Mediant and the ET Updater range, is deployed by broadcasters and playout providers globally.

Used by over 150 broadcasters globally including Discovery Communications Europe, BSkyB, Red Bee Media, M-Net, Sky Italia and ARD. For more information visit www.rascular.com.

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