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Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced the completion of a major broadcast facility upgrade at Ten Sports, part of the Zee Entertainment Group.  Ten Sports’ new broadcast facility, recently relocated from the UAE to India, relies on an end-to-end sports production and playout solution from Imagine Communications and supports the production and distribution of its entire family of channels.

Renowned as the leading sports network in Asia, Ten Sports operates five sports channels across 169 countries and owns the long-term broadcast rights for cricket boards in South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The solution includes the Imagine Communications D-Series™ automated content management and distribution system controlling Nexio® playout servers running Nexio Motion™ and Insight™ software that create automated processes to move and manage media. Ten Sports executes ingest, asset management and playout on a Nexio Farad™ high-performance online storage network with intrinsic mirroring for absolute content security. Imagine Communications also provided the core infrastructure at Ten Sports, including the Nexio IconMaster™ branding and master control switcher.  The industry-leading Platinum™ MX router with integrated Platinum™ SX Pro multiviewer capabilities provides signal routing, distribution and monitoring capabilities, enabling clean and quiet switching for on-air applications in a small physical footprint.

The upgrade has enabled Ten Sports to optimize workflow across the network, from ingest to playout, including all media management, branding and master control. Rich metadata tagging gives Ten Sports the flexibility to retrieve sports content anytime at any stage.

“Our existing IT infrastructure was dated and consisted of independent islands of storage, which lacked fast throughput — slowing the entire ingest to playout process,” said Sanjeev Bhargava, Vice President – Engineering, Ten Sports. “We selected Imagine Communications to enable us to build a more efficient workflow capable of handling the demands of modern day sports production, from ingest through to playout and archive. Furthermore, as our parent company, Zee Entertainment, is also an Imagine Communications’ playout solutions customer, we knew this solution was robust enough to meet our exacting requirements.

“The Nexio IconMaster is a key component of the system and is exclusively used by our sports channels, streamlining the function of fade-in/out during live switching from one event to another — a feature that is extremely important in a sports production environment.”

“There are many factors to consider during any relocation and upgrade,” added Raj Yadav, Regional Sales Manager South Asia at Imagine Communications. “For Ten Sports, this included the ability to work with a single supplier to provide the end-to-end technology and have this underpinned with local support. For a group that has eight sports channels covering regional and international sporting events, keeping the facility on air during the relocation and upgrade process was critical.”

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communications provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, will demonstrate its UHD readiness across the company’s networking and playout platforms at the upcoming IBC exhibition and conference in Amsterdam. The addition of capabilities to support UHDTV1 and 4K resolutions, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Expanded Color Gamut, and High Frame Rate as features of the company’s market-leading portfolio reinforces Imagine Communications’ long history of early and comprehensive support for the next generation of media and entertainment industry technologies.

“This is a dynamic time in our industry, and we are excited to be working with our customers to incorporate next-gen technologies like UHD into their workflows,” said Steve Reynolds, Chief Technology Officer, Imagine Communications. “Investments in innovation have infused our industry-leading, future-proofed products and solutions – from routing and processing platforms to servers, transcoding and encoding systems – with the ability to meet our customers’ latest and most demanding competitive requirements. The pivotal pieces of a viable UHD business model are steadily falling into place. Whenever our customers are ready to move to UHD, Imagine Communications is ready to take them there.”

UHD-compatible solutions on display at IBC include the company’s flagship Platinum™ IP3 router, which supports quad-link formats and features multiple integrated functionalities – operating under the Magellan™ SDN Orchestrator software control layer – as well as the industry-leading Nexio AMP® integrated server solution, which supports UHD playback.

Visitors to the Imagine Communications booth will also see a demonstration of the versatile Selenio™ MCP processing, compression and IP networking platform, featuring the recently released UHD up- and down-conversion modules. These new modules enable state-of-the-art 10-bit motion-adaptive processing, helping to ensure high video quality and integrity. This will allow broadcasters and media companies to leverage their existing HD assets, converting entire libraries of high-value content into the UHD digital video format for new revenue streams across today’s distribution platforms and a growing diversity of devices.

For UHD delivery to the end user, Imagine Communications will highlight the capabilities of SelenioFlex™ File. By supporting HEVC UHD Main 10 and Interoperable Master Format (IMF) file-based transcoding, SelenioFlex File enables UHD on-demand workflows for content distributors and other media companies. Imagine Communications will also showcase live, real-time HEVC encoding of UHD, featuring the SelenioFlex™ Live solution.

Imagine Communications’ UHD-enabled portfolio also includes the distribution and fiber optic modules of the long-standing broadcast staple, the Selenio 6800+™ signal processing platform. In addition, the versatile Selenio X100™ 1RU dual-channel frame synchronizer and converter is future-proofed for UHD.

Imagine Communications is committed to accelerating innovation through interoperable architectures that are compliant with industry-recognized formats and defined standards. The company is one of the first solution suppliers to formalize alliances with both the Sony IP Live and intoPIX TICO initiatives for managing high-resolution UHD formats.

“We’ve designed our products to support these two different approaches to reducing the tremendous bandwidth required for the delivery of UHD in both IP and SDI environments,” added Reynolds. “This allows our customers to have the flexibility of choosing the technology that best fits their current or future business strategies.”

For more information on end-to-end UHD workflows, please visit Imagine Communications at IBC2015, Stand 4.AMT.

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communications provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced it has implemented a major upgrade of a news production and playout facility at People’s Television Network Inc. (PTNI) in the Philippines through its reseller Composite Technology Inc. This upgrade provides the broadcaster’s PTV4 news channel with the ability to deliver higher-quality news packages to air faster and more efficiently, while retaining the control and management needed to preserve the station’s reputation.

A government-owned and controlled television station, PTNI is one of the leading news and sports broadcasters in the Philippines. The core of the network’s programming is news and public affairs, and the station has adopted the concept of a “newspaper on television” style of reporting. PTNI is also the official broadcaster of major international sporting events and has covered the Olympic Games since 1988.

The Imagine Communications solution covers two distinct areas of operation: the highly dynamic and reactive production and editing area for the news system and a dedicated area of the scheduled playout. Both are built around scalable Imagine Communications Nexio® video servers, with Nexio Motion™ content management and Insight™ advanced metadata systems providing intelligence, automation and accessibility. The integrated system simplifies the management of the content on and between the operational areas, as well as allowing journalists to locate and use the right content at the right time.

Critical for the dynamic live news presentation, where events cannot be missed or lost, is the content storage system, which uses the Nexio Farad™ high-performance online storage network. This incorporates Imagine Communications’ Intrinsic Mirroring™ for absolute content security and resilience. Playout control uses Imagine Communications’ market-proven ADC™ playout automation system, along with IconStation™ graphics and Nexio IconMaster™ branding and master control switcher.

Both edit-in-place high-resolution Velocity™ ESX workstations and proxy-based Velocity PRX clients are also included in the solution. The Nexio server system automatically generates browse-resolution proxies and instantly conforms offline edits for maximum speed in getting stories to air, as well as providing access to all journalists and editors.

“Our ambitious plans meant we needed a more efficient workflow in news production,” said Richard Valdez, engineering head at PTNI. “Because it was able to deliver a complete and well-integrated solution, we were confident that Imagine Communications was the right partner to help us raise production standards and operational efficiency.”

“We are delighted to help PTNI with its news production and playout modernization program,” said Joe Khodeir, senior vice president, APAC, for Imagine Communications. “Our integrated broadcast solutions are known around the world to be reliable and robust, which is critical for a news channel, where getting on air first is a key priority.”

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communications provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

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EPIC™ MV is a software-based, UHD-ready multiviewer that provides broadcasters with a single canvas for all signal types and a seamless transition path to an all-IP future.  Based on Imagine Communications’ open and extensible Zenium™ platform, EPIC MV is scalable to thousands of PIPs and hundreds of displays, providing a high-quality, low-TCO monitoring solution for today’s hybrid environments — and a simple, evolutionary path to any future monitoring requirement.

The EPIC MV is a complete multiviewer solution that offers the full features of a class-leading multi-image display system.  Featuring exceptional video quality, rich graphics, tally, UMD, timers, clocks and interfaces to a variety of third-party systems, EPIC MV delivers all the capabilities expected for monitoring and monetizing content in high-value production environments. 

Designed to simplify monitoring environments as broadcasters migrate to IP, EPIC MV is a true hybrid solution that natively supports low-bandwidth compressed streaming formats, including MPEG‑2 and H.264/AVC essence. Option boards provide high-capacity SDI over IP, ST 20226-6/7 reception. A high-capacity baseband 3G/HD/SD/ASI option releasing this year will add more breadth to the portfolio of input formats supported.

Selecting the core component of your new outside broadcast truck from the show floor of a busy trade show may strike many as the very definition of impulse buying.

But when Gary Snyder, president and engineer at Clark Media, sealed the deal for an Imagine Communications’ Platinum™ IP3 router to power his brand new mobile production vehicle at last year’s NAB show, he was being anything but impetuous.

“I had a different router in mind,” says Snyder, recounting the unconventional transaction from outside the entrance of his fully functional and field-tested OB truck, which was on display at this year’s NAB Show. “But with so much still up in the air concerning the latest technologies, I wanted a platform that would be state-of-the-art when things solidified. After seeing the IP3 at NAB last year, I knew Imagine was up to the challenge.”

In particular, Snyder was concerned that the momentum behind moving to Ultra High Definition (UHD) video quality and IP-based infrastructures would soon make his investment obsolete if his new truck was not designed with the future in mind. Clark Media required a mobile production facility that could deliver both HD and UHD quality and be capable of seamlessly and quickly shifting between the two resolutions as customers required.

“We currently do about 90% of our production in HD,” says Snyder, adding that many of his customers are now discovering that the benefits of delivering content in UHD justify what remains of a rapidly shrinking cost differential. “Already this year we are seeing that ratio shift significantly.”

Though the hybrid SDI-IP and HD-UHD attributes of the Platinum IP3 are critical to Clark Media’s current and future competitiveness, an even more valuable feature of Imagine Communications’ flagship router is its ability to store and instantly retrieve a variety of configurations. This means that a mobile production company can essentially customize its OB truck to meet the exacting requirements of each customer, shifting between HD and UHD or accommodating a wide degree of customer preferences in a matter of minutes.

The quick-config nature of the IP3 is especially valuable to Clark Media, which, unlike many mobile production companies, works in a variety of settings, rather than specializing in a single genre, such as sports or news. On any given week, Snyder’s newest vehicle could be called on to transmit the sights and sounds of a music concert, a corporate event or even a graduation ceremony at a private university. Later this year, says Snyder, the vehicle is booked for both the Republican and Democratic conventions.

Clark Media’s eclectic client base required a vehicle that was both a workhorse and hired gun on wheels. The company’s “Have truck, will travel” operating model demanded an OB vehicle with a router at its core that was capable of nearly on-the-fly adaptations to a variety of environments.

Snyder describes his new OB truck as “router-centric.”

“Every signal and all monitoring feeds go through the router,” he says. “That allows us, when we’re finished with a customer engagement, to simply save the settings. When we go back to the client, maybe a year or so later, we just need to recall the configuration.”

Another attribute of the IP3 that attracted Snyder’s attention, in addition to its ability to function seamlessly in a hybrid SDI-IP environment, is the consolidation of so much functionality into a compact container. The IP3 integrates mixed-format video and audio routing, multiviewer functionality, mux/demux, frame sync and advanced I/O options, such as MADI and fiber — all within a single, space-saving frame.

Imagine Communications’ family of routers also includes the Platinum™ VX, a small to midsize utility router designed to meet today’s requirements for additional scale and functionality. By leveraging the latest processing technologies, the company is able to bring to market large-scale router performance and reliability at utility router price points.

In the end, though, it was Clark Media’s close and longstanding relationship with Imagine Communications and its sales and technical people that made the successful transaction far from impulsive.

“We’ve been working with Imagine for 15 years,” says Snyder. “Imagine’s services and sales teams, as well as the way they go about putting together a next-gen solution, mesh tightly with the way we do things at Clark. Imagine Communications gets it.”

Snyder is confident that his new production vehicle is built to handle whatever assignment it encounters today or down the road — save for combat zones. “Check that,” he adds. “We are handling this summer’s political conventions.”

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Imagine Communications, empowering the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation, has supplied PNN TV, a recently launched Cambodian private terrestrial channel, with critical components from across its networking and playout solution portfolios. The comprehensive solution delivers full automation for the newsroom and master control room (MCR) of the largest television production complex in the country.

“We just made a significant investment in equipment which is expected to take broadcasting in Cambodia to the next level,” said Mr. Seng Nhak, a director at the L.Y.P. Group, a Cambodian investment company that launched PNN TV in 2015. “Imagine Communications demonstrated the efficiency and the practicality of their proposals, and was able to offer us good support in the region, which gave us the confidence to take this big leap forward.”

The PNN TV complex, which lies on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, employs over 300 staff for the production of news and entertainment television. Imagine Communications provided PNN TV with a host of networking and playout equipment to support the channel’s automated MCR and newsroom, as part of a large turnkey solution. This state-of-the-art automation system is instrumental in enabling the new station to operate more efficiently.

Central to the solution is the Imagine Communications ADC™ automation system, the Nexio® Ingest Suite and Nexio Motion™ content management system. Tightly integrated with a newsroom computer system (NRCS) from Octopus, the ADC and Nexio solutions provide seamless editorial collaboration, ensure high productivity and minimize human error across the MCR and newsroom. The new automation system provides a consistently high-quality output and excellent efficiency. It is a key part of PNN’s ambitions to be a world-class station.  Also incorporated in the news workflow is a Nexio broadcast graphics system for live and realtime production graphics.

The Selenio 6800+™ core processing and distribution platform sits at the heart of the brand new automated PNN TV news production workflow, providing a hub through which all signals can efficiently move across the facility. In addition, the Selenio X50™ and Selenio X100™ deliver accurate frame synchronization and conversion, with signal distribution support from Platinum™ routers and multiviewers, while Nexio AMP® integrated servers enable the seamless, automated ingest and output of broadcast content. Videotek® test and measurement equipment ensures all video and audio signals are measured and analyzed to maintain signal stability in the facility.

“This is an important new customer win for Imagine Communications in Cambodia,” said Joe Khodeir, senior vice president of Asia Pacific at Imagine Communications. “PNN TV is the most modern station in Cambodia and we believe this project will be a catalyst in convincing other stations across the region that Imagine Communications can deliver state-of-the-art, end-to-end turnkey solutions anywhere in the world they are needed.”

For more information about the technology installed at PNN and Imagine Communications’ entire product portfolio, please visit www.imaginecommunications.com.

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

Changes are happening in the live production sector of the media and entertainment industry. Broadcasters and other production companies from across the planet are embracing next-generation technologies and architectures, outfitting their facilities and production vehicles with IP-based solutions that usher in new levels of cost efficiency and agility, as well as ease current and future upgrades to higher-quality services.  

Imagine Communications is at the center of this activity.

In the past few weeks the company has publically unveiled multiple commercial deployments, which represent a sampling of recent successes among live production houses that are upgrading facilities to confront near-term challenges and seize long-term opportunities created by rapidly shifting video consumption patterns.

In April, for example, Imagine Communications announced that Globo, the largest broadcaster in Latin America, had turned to Imagine to equip an outside broadcast truck for Ultra High Definition (UHD) production in time for the two-week international sporting event being conducted in the Brazilian broadcaster’s home country this summer.

The next-generation broadcast truck is the first UHD- and IP-capable production vehicle in Latin America. It also marks the commercial debut of the Imagine Communications Platinum™ IP3 15RU router, a compact, space- and power-saving version of the award-winning IP3 28RU router.

A major objective of Imagine Communications’ work with Globo in Brazil is to provide the broadcaster with a pathway to IP. Mauricio Felix, director of infrastructure and projects at Globo, speaking at an ImagineLIVE sports-focused Power Session at the NAB Show in April, cited a few benefits of IP in a live production environment:

"IP brings a lot of things to the table. It brings speed, it brings flexibility and also we can leverage the standards of the IT industry, which is a lot bigger than our industry." 
— Mauricio Felix, Globo

New IP Live Test Center

Imagine Communications collaborated closely with Sony to ensure that Globo’s new OB truck would be capable of broadcasting the images and sounds of the upcoming summer games in UHD over an IP-based infrastructure. In addition to working with Sony in the field, Imagine Communications recently demonstrated its support for furthering the advancement of IP-based production environments by participating in the launch of a dedicated IP Live Studio at Sony’s Digital Motion Picture Centre Europe (DMPCE) at Pinewood Film Studios near London. 

Imagine Communications is a long-time member of the Sony IP Live Alliance and has demonstrated interoperability with Sony’s Networked Media Interface (NMI) in both live and lab settings. The Imagine solutions deployed in the IP Live Studio are Selenio™ Uncompressed over IP (UCIP) processing, the recently introduced hybrid IP EPIC™ Multiviewer (EPIC MV) and the Magellan™ SDN Orchestrator, a software control system for managing hybrid SDI-IP environments. Representatives of the company were on hand at the opening of the DMPCE facility, which took place on June 17th.

The new IP Live studio will provide hands-on familiarity with IP-based live production environments and further the advancement of IP in live settings through training and testing and by demonstrating multivendor interoperability, says Norbert Paquet, Strategic Marketing Manager at Sony Professional Europe, in a recent press release:

"Seeing is believing is a particularly apt axiom for the media and entertainment industry. Our new facility at the DMPCE provides broadcasters and production companies with up-close evidence of the power and feasibility of an IP-based live production environment. The participation of Imagine Communications and other leading manufacturers is critical to the overall success of this initiative."
— Norbert Paquet, Sony Professional Europe

Productivity & Versatility for the Long Haul

Today’s technology buyers are increasingly savvy. They understand that a rapidly evolving technology landscape makes it imperative that they purchase live production solutions that will not be obsolete in a few years. They need solutions that can fulfill today’s requirements, as well as seamlessly adapt to handle whatever market dynamics might erupt over the next few years.

Clark Media had an eye to the future when it teamed up with Imagine Communications to build a next-generation mobile production unit capable of switching between HD and UHD resolutions essentially on the fly, says Gary Snyder, president and engineer at Clark Media:

"With so much still up in the air concerning the latest technologies, I wanted a platform that would be state-of-the-art when things solidified. After seeing the IP3 at NAB last year, I knew Imagine was up to the challenge."
— Gary Snyder, Clark Media

In addition to investing in a production vehicle that would still be a workhorse five to seven years into the future, Clark required the flexibility to accommodate the production needs of current clients as they navigate the transition from HD to UHD. Particularly attractive to Snyder was the ability of the Imagine Platinum router at the heart of his OB vehicle to store and instantly retrieve a variety of configurations. This enables a mobile production company to essentially shift between HD and UHD in a matter of minutes to meet the exacting requirements of each customer.

An OB Truck Quartet

Flexibility was also a chief objective of NEP UK, a leading mobile sports production company that partnered with Imagine Communications for a fleet of outside production vehicles. The new trucks, capable of HD, 1080p HD and 4K/UHD production, as well as easily switching between HD and UHD resolutions as assignments require, deliver the versatility that Rob Newton, director of engineering and technology for NEP in the UK, says is vital to his company:

"Our success as a business depends on high utilisation of our assets, which in turn means they have to be extremely flexible. Imagine Communications gives us that flexibility, with the capability to instantly switch formats without worrying about synchronisation and routing issues, and without adding latency that would be a nightmare in live production."
— Rob Newton, NEP

In addition to Platinum routers, the NEP deployments also featured  Selenio™ MCP units fortified with HD-UHD up- and down-conversion capabilities and the Selenio 6800+, Selenio X100 and Selenio X50 modular units for signal processing, monitoring and distribution. Imagine Communications’ extensive processing, routing and compression solutions work together seamlessly to create a state-of-the-art environment for supporting UHD in a hybrid SDI-IP environment.

Wrap-Up

Steady technology advances and consensus-gaining standards continue to bolster the capabilities of generic computing and networking platforms as suitable hosts for live production operations. The seamless integration of SDI and IP signaling planes that allows for a gradual and cost-efficient transition to next-gen architectures is also contributing to the transformation of today’s live production landscape.

Imagine Communications, as evidenced by this sampling of live production deployment wins and interoperability announcements, is at the forefront of this transformation. Working with partners, broadcasters and production companies on nearly every continent, Imagine Communications is bringing together the critical components of tomorrow’s live production facilities today.  

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