Tag: Orca

At NAB 2019, on booth SL4528, Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will showcase its best of breed solutions for playout, including: a business continuity demonstration featuring Orca, Pebble’s virtualised integrated channel solution for private or public cloud deployments; Web-based remote management and monitoring with Lighthouse; scalable multichannel playout automation via the company’s flagship Marina solution; and integrated channel playout with Dolphin, supporting uncompressed multi-channel 4K and 25GbE IP functionality.
Business Continuity
Pebble’s award-winning virtualised IP channel solution, Orca, continues to be deployed by organizations seeking an all IP integrated channel system designed for uncompromised playout from the cloud. There are currently well over 100 Orca virtualised channels on the air, many of which are complex multi-language broadcasts requiring precise synchronisation and comprehensive audio playout rules. Disaster recovery has been a catalyst in the growing adoption of virtualised playout for many companies wishing to “test the waters” when designing and testing an IP and cloud ecosystem, and Pebble will showcase a full business continuity system using Orca in the AWS cloud, fully synchronised with the local system so that channel output and functionality remain the same, even in a disaster scenario.
Remote Management and Monitoring
Whether for a main, backup, or DR system, Pebble’s Lighthouse enables monitoring and/or control from a single, secure, centralised web-based dashboard. At NAB, visitors will be able to see clear and concise exception monitoring lists any errors to provide actionable information on each system, and low latency monitoring using NDI technology which delivers a confidence preview of each system to the Lighthouse UI, without the delays incurred by having to manage compressed video.
Scalable Multichannel Playout Automation
Marina is Pebble’s flagship multichannel playout automation system for systems playing out one to hundreds of channels, and is in use at top tier broadcasters around the world. NAB attendees will learn how broadcasters can upgrade or migrate their legacy automation systems to Marina’s powerful automation platform in a managed way. Playout infrastructures can evolve from legacy device control to incorporate new and evolving technologies with minimum disruption to processes and staff.
Integrated Channel Playout
Dolphin is a compact and cost-effective integrated channel device which operates under Pebble Beach Systems’ Marina automation control. When equipped with the Matrox X.mio5 Q25 SMPTE 2110 NIC card, Dolphin supports uncompressed multi-channel 4K and 25 GbE IP functionality without any increased load to the CPU. Organisations with IP migration plans have purchased Dolphin servers with SDI hardware secure in the knowledge that they can easily install IP I/O hardware, such as the X.mio5, when the time is right for them. Going far beyond typical CiaB (Channel-in-a-box) capabilities, Dolphin also incorporates a series of software plugins, allowing organisations to use their preferred best-of-breed solutions within the integrated channel environment. Plug-ins include Ross and Pixel Power graphics, loudness from the Telos Alliance, live captioning from EEG, and Kantar and Nielsen watermarking.
Further announcements on IP standards development and software plug-ins will be made nearer the show.
 

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Proven migration path and hybrid approach provides ultimate flexibility and confidence
Weybridge, UK, July 23rd, 2018 –Pebble Beach Systems, a leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, has further optimised its Marina playout system to ease the migration from legacy and EOL systems The company has successfully helped scores of customers worldwide transition from legacy and EOL systems to its state of the art Marina playout solution. Central to this success is Pebble’s managed approach and a plugin framework that ensures a seamless transition from legacy broadcast automation systems to the powerful Marina automation system without stress, compromise, and the need for a hard cut-over date. With Marina, the ability to create a hybrid, synchronised playout chain with any combination of hardware and software gives broadcasters and multi-channel originators ultimate flexibility to transition any part of that playout chain at a pace to suit their scheduling and operational requirements.
As legacy automation systems reach end-of-life, organisations want to take advantage of the flexibility and power of modern, centralized, software-based automation systems. However, many are concerned about migrating years of accumulated data from their legacy system database to a new automation system. For any business, having a hard cutover to an entirely new system comes with considerable risk. Are all staff adequately trained? Is it really necessary to change every component at once? Can we preserve our existing investment in channel technology? Is there a path to virtualisation and the cloud?
Pebble Beach Systems’ approach is enabling broadcasters to answer these questions in a way that mitigates risk and instils confidence.
Legacy broadcast automation databases often contain descriptive and timing metadata for hundreds of thousands of clips. Much of the descriptive data input by operators is considered critical to the successful use of the asset. Just as important is the metadata that describes the timing information. When an asset is ingested, an operator must determine the true start time, skipping any garbage frames, and the true end time for clean playback. Segment timings for breaks are also key. Both descriptive and timing metadata are stored in the legacy database, but if that data is lost during translation to the new automation system, control operators can’t guarantee a clean broadcast output. Having personnel re-analyse and re-mark all clips in the new database is unsustainable, but Marina’s existing integration with practically all the popular broadcast scheduling and traffic systems enables organisations to standardise their data exchange, while direct API integration with third-party MAM systems enables retention of existing workflows.
When migrating to Marina, not only is all metadata transferred, but an active database bridge is also created between both systems to keep the systems in sync and enable them to run in parallel.

“Having an engineer show up and run a one-time database conversion process is not a solution for most customers,” says Ian Cockett, CTO and one of the founders of Pebble Beach Systems. “We realize that hard cutovers are unrealistic and overly burdensome, so the method we provide keeps the legacy and the Marina databases constantly synchronised, running in parallel, ensuring operations can make a well-orchestrated and managed transition on their own terms, in their own time.”

Having a hybrid approach means not only running any legacy equipment in parallel, but also having the ability to run a mix of SDI and IP equipment. Pebble’s integrated channel technology device, Dolphin, allows SDI or IP playback so that operations can switch to an IP based infrastructure when they are ready, and everything is tested.

“It’s one thing to build a greenfield site from the ground up with the latest IP infrastructure,” says Cockett. “For everyone else, moving the entire playout chain to IP represents another potential point of failure that many broadcasters are rightly hesitant to undertake.”

Operator change management is a further key consideration during system migration. The Marina UI layout can be configured to closely mimic a legacy system UI which helps with initial training and uninterrupted operation. With time, additional data and augmented feature sets can be revealed to operators by the system’s administrators.
Virtualisation of playout is a hot topic, but not every channel is a good candidate for moving to a public or private data centre today. As technology and business models continue to evolve, it’s very important for any new playout system to have a path to virtualised deployment. Orca, Pebble’s virtualised playout solution is already providing cloud playout for multiple customers. So, whether a broadcaster needs a path to virtualisation today, or tomorrow, Orca and Marina provide a future-proof strategy with no need for staff to learn a new interface.

Weybridge, UK, February 8th, 2018 –Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI), is a leading developer of high-profile content for many lifestyle media platforms including television, digital, mobile and publishing. Popular lifestyle brands in its media portfolio include HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Cooking Channel, Travel Channel and Great American Country.
After retiring its previous automation and playout system over a year ago, SNI has been successfully broadcasting 33 channels from the Knoxville Broadcast Operations Center utilising Pebble Beach System’s Marina automation and Dolphin integrated channel systems.
The Pebble Beach Systems team was tasked with designing a system that would sufficiently isolate and protect each playout chain, while still allowing synchronised operation. In order to accomplish the task, the Pebble team architected a multi-domain system with high levels of resilience and isolation between each functional area. One domain exclusively handles Ingest and Content Management, with a second and third dedicated to Primary and Backup Transmission. The fourth domain holds a fully redundant DR (Disaster Recovery) located out of state.
The Ingest and Content Management domain incorporates a Harmonic ingest server to which files are delivered from an upstream file-based workflow. Despite the high level of isolation, domains are able to synchronise metadata and playlists are mirrored automatically between Primary and Backup transmission domains.
“Our goal was to eliminate as many points of failure as possible,” said Scott Wilkerson, Engineering Manager at SNI. “We wanted a more user-friendly UI, column-based editing and synchronised databases. The system had to be easy to maintain, and offer complete redundancy.”
The CiaB (Channel-in-a-box) philosophy –having automation running on the same device where the video playback and other graphics, audio and VANC processing reside– is a core benefit that delivers simplicity and reliability for SNI.

“We have pulled the network connection out of the back of the box, and the Dolphin system will continue to execute as long as it has a playlist and media. We could lose every core, every switch, every piece of our network infrastructure, and we would continue to playout over the air,” says Wilkerson.

Operational efficiency was a key aspect for SNI and the ability to integrate seamlessly with the Grass Valley Intuition XG graphics system saved a lot of time and investment.

“Looking back at the development stage, Pebble has met or exceeded our expectations. The increase in efficiency coupled with the reduction in hardware has enabled us to take on additional work and grow the department. This new infrastructure has also positioned ourselves to spin up any content stream the business requires much faster than historically,” said John Ajamie, SVP, US Operations, SNI.

SNI is benefiting from enhanced resiliency which comes from the self-sufficient ecosystem that Dolphin, running Marina automation, provides. A more autonomous system also means there are fewer points of failure in an integrated channel design.

“We recently had an issue where we lost network connectivity, and things kept running like a dream. No one knew anything was going on in the rest of the facility,” said says Doreen Akune, Director of Network Operations at SNI.

The SNI team is looking at Pebble Beach Systems’ Lighthouse, web-based remote management and monitoring tool, to further streamline operations.
“Controlling and monitoring operations remotely is important, but we also want other departments, like creative services and traffic, to have access,” says Wilkerson. “For example, we’d like Traffic to be able to make log change requests electronically through Lighthouse, have them approved, and automatically send the approvals back to Traffic. For that and many other reasons, we like the options that Lighthouse brings to the table.”
SNI is also looking at options for expanding with virtualised playout systems, such as Pebble’s Orca, for dynamic deployments including pop-up and experimental channels. The challenge is to bring any best-of-breed processing tools into a software ecosystem, so that either Dolphin, or Orca, can run everything required in the cloud.
“It’s great to see all of these additional software plugins coming onboard for Dolphin, and we think the product is well positioned to support us as we look to virtualise playout”, concludes Wilkerson.
–ends—