Challenge
This service provider, based in Seoul, is an entertainment and media subsidiary of a large South Korean conglomerate comprising of numerous businesses in various industries of food, pharmaceuticals, entertainment and media, home shopping and logistics.
They provide broadcast services feeding 40 channels and had been using a combination of a legacy integrated solution and a South Korean automaton software driving third party servers. In a bid to move some channels off this legacy platform, they started researching possible technologies in 2019. Following a detailed POC the customer ordered and began implementing an 11 channel Pebble playout solution in 2021.
The service provider wanted a flexible solution that could support a combination of SDI, ST 2110 and transport streams, and would allow for future channel expansion, hosted on COTS hardware, or even virtualised. The solution needed to be reliable offering high availability and support Korean language for graphics and subtitles.
Solution
The solution included Pebble Automation controlling 33 Integrated Channels in an 11+11+11 redundant configuration, hosted on 6+6+6 bare metal servers. Each on-air channel can be fed from any one of three Integrated Channels to provide very high availability. For even more security they have VTRs for emergency playout.
All channel pipelines are of similar design with ST 2110 and SDI inputs and outputs plus NDI monitoring. Logical processors include loudness control, audio shuffling, Dolby D encoding, SCTE-104 and closed subtitling.
The service provider is the first customer to use the RT Graphics software plugin for which Pebble have developed a shared memory interface and native device driver. RT Graphics offer complex graphics capabilities and are used in MCR playout, and studios, at many broadcasters around the world.
Result
The pandemic and travel restrictions prevented on-site visits, but with the assistance of our local channel partner and through remote access, the system was successfully commissioned, going on air at the end of 2021.
Using Pebble Automation, the service provider has been able to make media management improvements by automating file transfers based upon playlists missing media. Pebble has also embarked on further proof of concepts for possible channel expansions.
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