02 Jun 2008
Phoenix TV Chooses Pebble Beach Automation as Part of a New Playout Centre
Pebble Beach Systems, a world leader in automation and media management solutions, today announced that Phoenix TV in Hong Kong has purchased a Pebble Beach Neptune automation system for installation in their new broadcast playout centre.
The deal was facilitated by Pebble Beach's Asia Pac partner, Magna Systems and Engineering whose managing director Robert Clemesha said, "We are delighted that Phoenix TV has chosen a Pebble Beach automation system. Phoenix TV is an innovative broadcaster with very specific broadcast requirements that can now be fully taken care of by the Neptune system."
The Phoenix TV installation represents the first of its kind in Hong Kong and came after a very lengthy evaluation and assessment process. Commenting on the sale, Phoenix TV Engineering Manager Wicky Law said, "At Phoenix TV we have a very specific workflow in that all of our content has to undergo a strict QC before it goes to air. We approached several automation vendors and invited them to Hong Kong to give us demonstrations of how their systems could manage our workflow. When we considered all options, Magna Systems and the Pebble Beach Neptune solution was the best. We were also very impressed with Magna Systems' and Pebble Beach's support and response times."
The Pebble Beach Neptune automation system is part of a 5-channel playout solution which will be housed alongside new studios and newsrooms in Phoenix TV's purpose-built broadcast centre in Taipo. Of those five channels, three are broadcast to China, one to America and one to Europe. Under Neptune automation will be Miranda Master Control, Omneon servers and Thomson routers.
Law continued, "We chose Pebble Beach Neptune automation because it is user friendly, reliable and flexible. It was also the only system that could efficiently manage our strict workflow requirements. A big part of the decision was having Magna Systems as Pebble Beach's agent. We found them to be responsive and very experienced in all areas of automation and broadcast playout."
The 5 channel Pebble Beach Neptune automation system is being delivered in June 2008 and expected to be commissioned in August 2008.
About Pebble Beach Neptune
Neptune is a full-scale transmission automation product designed to automate the acquisition and playout of programmes, commercials and trailers in a TV station. It is built using modern software techniques and runs on the latest PC hardware platforms.
Neptune is frame accurate, reliable and easy to use. It controls a full range of devices including cart machines, data archive libraries, video servers, VTRs, routers, master control switchers, logo inserters, character generators, UMDs and audio mixers. It is a powerful, expandable and highly versatile product, which is continually being enhanced to meet customer needs and to integrate new devices.
Neptune has a client-server architecture. The controller controls the broadcast devices via serial or network interfaces and communicates to the clients via Pebble Beach's TCP/IP protocol. There are clients for ingest, transmission and media browsing. A separate housekeeper is responsible for managing the system database and for generating logs.
