Africa 24, a 24/7 news network that broadcasts news to Sub-Saharan Africa, and is also available via satellite to subscribers in the MENA region, has deployed Pebble beach Systems Stingray channel-in-a-box at its transmission centre in Paris. Stingray leverages Pebble Beach Systems automation and integrated channel technology to deliver a full HD ingest and playout channel-in-a-box solution for […]
Africa 24, a 24/7 news network that broadcasts news to Sub-Saharan Africa, and is also available via satellite to subscribers in the MENA region, has deployed Pebble beach Systems Stingray channel-in-a-box at its transmission centre in Paris.
Stingray leverages Pebble Beach Systems automation and integrated channel technology to deliver a full HD ingest and playout channel-in-a-box solution for systems of up to six channels. In addition to hosting clip-based channels, it is designed to handle complex reactive channels featuring live content, late-breaking changes and dynamic schedules. Its client-server architecture enables multiple channels to be controlled from a single operator position, and user privileges and access to specific functionality can be set on a per channel basis.
Africa 24s single channel fully redundant Stingray system was supplied by Pebble Beach Systems partner in France, Soft4TV, and was installed in May, with operator training completed early in June. It integrates into the broadcasters existing technical infrastructure, offering automatic media movement from the current media SAN. Stingrays native 2D Flash graphics playout capability is deployed deliver graphics which are dynamically updated when breaking stories arrive, and Stingrays audio and DVE functionality are used to generate transitions between news segments.
Yacine Barro, the Executive Director of Africa24 said: When the service providers for our backup channel moved location, we elected to migrate the management of both main and backup channels to our own technology in-house. We are a new broadcaster and are still growing, so a key priority was to find a solution that could evolve with us. We evaluated all the big name channel-in-a-box solutions, and Stingray was the most open and scalable, offering the greatest potential to add more channels and language variants. Of course, Pebble Beach Systems excellent reputation and great references were also a factor!
Pebble Beach Systems Managing Director Peter Hajittofi commented: Stingray is based on proven 64-bit architecture and leverages our best-of-breed Marina enterprise automation and Dolphin integrated channel device, so Africa 24s mix of live and clip-based programming, with frequent late-breaking changes to the schedule, really plays to the strengths of this channel-in-a-box solution.
