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Automating the path from SDI to IP for broadcasters

Column | Newscast Studio – US trade publication for broadcast production

Written by David Kicks, VP of Sales for The Americas at Pebble.

In our last piece we gave you a history lesson in Broadcast 101. This time we’re getting deeper into the detail of broadcast technology, to examine automation in the context of navigating from SDI to IP environments.

More content is being created and viewed over more platforms by more audiences. Organizations are moving beyond HD, to 4K and even in the future 8K or 12K as well as aspect-ratio-free and resolution-free formats. 

Today, distribution and delivery are as important as image quality or production values. As a result, the continued use of SDI or coaxial connections becomes potentially burdensome. One practical and cost-effective solution is IP transport. 

Before you read further, you may be asking, why is an automation manufacturer talking about SDI to IP? What does one have to do with the other? …

Click HERE to read the article in full.

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Pebble accelerates growth with new appointments

New Pebble recruits in Brazil, France, and the UK will help the company continue to deliver world class solutions to the global broadcast community.

Weybridge, Surrey, UK , 14 July 2021:

Pebble, the leading automation, content management, and integrated channel specialist, is delighted to announce the key appointments of new staff members to join its growing worldwide team. Vinicius Val de Casas and Clément Rouot join as Solutions Architects in Brazil and France respectively, while in the UK David Young joins as Product Owner, Tariq Al-Radhi joins as Customer Fulfilment Engineer on a student placement, and Anisa Khan joins as Junior Technical Author.

Vinicius has more than 10 years’ experience in a series of engineering roles within broadcast and has also worked with Pebble reseller, Videodata. Residing in Sao Paolo he is perfectly placed to support the company’s continued expansion into the LATAM market.

Most recently, Clément has worked as a freelancer working for various broadcasters and system integrators, including Canal+ Overseas, France Televisions and Videlio in France. Based in the South-West of France, he brings with him a wealth of Engineering, Bid and Project Management experience from across the Broadcast industry.

David brings a wealth of experience with him, having previously worked at Sony as a Software Developer before moving into pre-sales and then product management/ownership.

His most recent role has been in the FinTech industry, but he admits he couldn’t resist the temptation of rejoining the broadcast industry.

Tariq is currently studying towards a Bachelor of Engineering degree on Electrical and Electronics Engineering with the City University of London. And Anisa graduated last year from Brunel University London, cutting her technical documentation teeth on a degree in Biomedical Sciences.

“We are excited to welcome new staff to the company at such a crucial point of growth for Pebble and are delighted that our remote working operating model is removing any geographical constraints to successfully recruiting,” comments Peter Mayhead, CEO at Pebble. “It’s the people that make Pebble, in fact one of our core values is ‘Every Pebble Matters’. We value each and every one of them for their committed contributions to deliver world class solutions to the broadcast community 24/7. I have no doubt that Vinicius, Clément, David, Tariq, and Anisa will be brilliant additions to the Pebble team.”

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Designing virtual media supply chains

IABM Q2 Industry Journal | Article | Pg 50

Written by Miroslav Jeras, CTO at Pebble

While it is generally acknowledged that the broadcast industry roadmap leads to a fully IP-based infrastructure, there is still plenty of uncertainty regarding the exact route that will be taken to get there. Currently the industry can be characterised as being in an extended implementation phase which concurrently overlaps with the R&D efforts necessary to make IP workflows optimised throughout an organisation.

There are several areas of uncertainty surrounding IP deployments as a result, and one of the chief ones resides in IP assignment and the way that broadcast engineers can connect and disconnect devices to IP-based broadcast networks. This becomes a significant task in the move from SDI to IP, with several vital stages that have to be completed. Connecting devices to a switch might be relatively straightforward, but each device requires an IP address so that it’s visible to the network. Then, for each output on each device, a multicast address and a multicast port for video, for audio, and for ancillary data need to be allocated. Additionally, in an IP environment it’s also more difficult to lock and synchronise all these sources together, requiring PTP (precision time protocol) parameters to be set for each device.

This is why we developed Pebble Control; to solve these problems and to do it in an independent and cost-effective way that retains interoperability and does not require any lock in to a specific manufacturer’s ecosystem. As a result Pebble Control is a connection management system that assists in the transition to becoming a vendor-agnostic IP facility without the need to deploy a bespoke enterprise solution and get caught up in all the configuration, consultation, and potentially large expense that that process involves…

Click HERE to read the article in full (scroll to Page 50)

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Pebble welcomes new Marcoms Manager, Tanya Rai

Experienced industry professional joins as new Marketing and Communications Manager role created to further company’s expansion plans.

Weybridge, Surrey, UK, 23 June 2021: Pebble, the leading automation, content management, and integrated channel specialist is delighted to announce the appointment of Tanya Rai to the newly created position of Marketing and Communications Manager within the company. Working closely with the Sales and Marketing Director, Alison Pavitt, Tanya will help develop a consistently engaging voice for the brand across all channels and types of content, and support the team in multiple marcoms activities as Pebble embarks on the next phase of its expansion plans.

Tanya joins Pebble having worked across the media and entertainment sector for over 13 years, both as an employee and freelancer. Major clients in that time have included the BBC, Cheltenham Festivals, Wildscreen and IBC, where she managed the delivery of the popular and influential Big Screen Programme.

She was a mentee on the RISE award-winning mentoring programme in 2019, and subsequently joined the RISE board as the Marketing and Event lead. In addition to a degree in Media and Communications Studies, she also has a Diploma in Professional Marketing and, as her track record shows, has a wealth of PR, copywriting, event management, social media, and filming and editing experience. Tanya currently holds a place on the Wonder Women in TV mentoring programme and earlier this year, was nominated to apply for a place on The TV Collective’s Breakthrough Leadership Programme.

“We are delighted to welcome Tanya to the company at a hugely exciting time for Pebble,” comments Alison Pavitt, Sales and Marketing Director at Pebble. “We are in the middle of a far-reaching programme of launching a number of new products and enhancements, as well as expanding into new markets, and we look forward to her using her notable industry expertise and skills in enhancing our digital and online presence and promotional activities.”

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QoE the focus as playout move to the cloud

InBroadcast – global broadcast industry monthly magazine | Article

Written by Adrian Pennington with contribution from Alison Pavitt, Director of Sales & Marketing at Pebble

Effectively monitoring a steadly increasing number of channels at a centralised operations center is critical to the success of OTT services. OTT platforms must process and deliver multiple video formats to different display devices, different screen sizes and resolutions, at different bit rates, increasing the quantity and complexity of monitoring.

As the number of channels for OTT delivery continues to grow, monitoring these channels in a highly automated way has become paramount to ensuring a good Quality of Experience for the viewer. To deliver QoE that’s as good as linear TV broadcasts, the entire system – from ingest to multi-bitrate encoding to delivery to CDN – must be monitored continuously…

Click HERE to read the article in full.