KTVA Alaska Builds New Centralcasting Facility

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA KTVA Alaska, a CBS affiliate owned by Denali Media Holdings, has built a lightweight and flexible media center media center in Anchorage using a wide range of file processing, playout and channel branding technology from Harmonic. The facility was designed, integrated, and installed by systems integrator TI Broadcast Solutions Group (TIBSG) based in Norcross, Georgia.

Trent McNelly, director of engineering and operations at KTVA-11, said the facility includes highly optimized workflows that support maximum flexibility and productivity in managing, sharing, creating, and delivering quality content.

A veritable channel-in-a-box, the Spectrum ChannelPort system enables the keying of multilayer graphics and dynamic text over playback or live video.

Among the technology implemented are Harmonics Spectrum ChannelPort integrated channel playout system, Spectrum MediaDeck media servers, Electra 9200 multiservice encoders, and ProMedia Carbon file-based transcoders. It all has been tightly integrated to enable flexible, efficient centralcasting for three new TV stations, including KTVA.

The Harmonic solution we installed is critical to meeting these goals, supplying a versatile yet stable solution for branded channel playout, McNelly said.

The team has combined channel branding and master control switching with clip playout on the Spectrum server platform, while the ChannelPort system provides playout capabilities and the flexibility required for future growth. Harmonics scalable Spectrum server and playout systems will make it easy and cost-effective for KTVA to launch additional services.

A veritable channel-in-a-box, the ChannelPort system enables the keying of multilayer graphics and dynamic text over playback or live video. The Harmonic solution also offers support for a broad range of automation systems, and KTVA is using it in conjunction with its existing automation system.

The Electra 9200 multichannel, multiservice encoder enables KTVA to encode and stat mux both SD and HD MPEG-2 services, while maintaining upgradability to MPEG-4 AVC if needed. The ProMedia Carbon file-based transcoding solution complements the Electra encoder by facilitating the conversion of media to a massive array of acquisition, editing, broadcast, Web, and mobile formats. Together these Harmonic solutions allow KTVA to realize high performance in processing media for virtually any outlet or platform.

A two-minute Industry Spotlight video on KTVA Alaskas integrated channel playout system can be seen here.

Harmonic will showcase its full line of technology solutions at the upcoming IBC Show (stand 1.B20) in September.

LINK:	http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0110/ktva-alaska-builds-new-centralca...
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