Arab Media Corporation, ART, Broadcast, studio
Saudi-based Arab Media Corporation, the parent company of Arab Radio & Television (ART) has contracted UK-based systems integrator ATG broadcast to design, supply, install and commission a studio for the media conglomerate in Riyadh.
Equipment for the 300 sq.m studio will be pre-fabricated and tested at ATG’s facility warehouse in the UK before being shipped to the site. The studio is scheduled for completion later this year.
The studio will be wired for five cameras and includes a simple workflow comprising two Harris Nexio servers and three Final Cut Pro editing suites. HD 1080i 50 will be used as the standard video format throughout with embedded audio where possible (HD video to SMPTE 292M).
In the studio, the audio mixing will be managed by a Studer Vista 5 audio mixer with a number of AES/EBU inputs de-embedded from the HD signal and analogue inputs from the studio mics and so on. This will be de-embedded back into the HD signal for broadcast.
While a small amount of direct ingesting and playout will be done via Harris’ own ingest and playout programme, the rest will be ingested into the Nexio using the ingest manager and made available for editing through an FCP Integration Gateway server that will link FCP with the Nexio.
“With the gateway, most standard formats including DV25 / DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50, DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra, IMX (30/40/50), XDCAM HD (35 Mb), XDCAM HD422 (50 Mb), XDCAM EX, graphics files (BMP, JPG, TGA, TIF, PSD, PNG) and PCM uncompressed audio formats will be supported,” says Jim Greaves, business development manager, ATG Broadcast.
In addition to this, the installation will include a range of Nexio plug-ins comprising NEXIO Browser and NEXIO Export. The NEXIO Browser is a plug-in application on the FCP that exposes all compatible content as MOV files on the FCP client. NEXIO Browser also exposes standard metadata, provides a preview window for quick reviewing of content, allows metadata searches and manipulation, and enables immediate placing of content from this window into the FCP bin by linking, not copying. This will allow edit in place on files being ingested.
After NEXIO Browser has linked the content in FCP’s bin, the full feature set of FCP becomes available for generating an edit. Completed edits are turned into new high resolution IDs by rendering flattened files back onto the NEXIO SAN with the NEXIO Export plug-in, where it it is then available for playback.
While 90% of the equipment is HD, a small portion will also support SDI i/o, explains Greaves.
This project is the first of many ATG claims to have in the pipeline following its showing at CABSAT.
“We are looking to open an office in the region based on the response we received at CABSAT,” explains Graham Day, managing director, ATG Broadcast.
“Our teams are currently working on several large projects in Europe for major broadcasters in the field of 3D and HD facilities, and we hope to bring this expertise with us to the new projects in the Middle East region. Our sister company Hiltron just won a major IPTV headend contract in Abu Dhabi, so as a group we feel this is a good sign for future growth for us in the region,” he adds.
