Second Harris Platinum IP3 for SuperSport
Johannesburg-based SuperSport, the leading provider of pay television sports coverage across the African continent, has selected a second Platinum IP3 Router from Harris Broadcast. Earlier this year, SuperSport became the first broadcaster worldwide to integrate the Platinum IP3 router within its operations.
On both projects Harris Broadcast worked closely with its regional value-added reseller and systems integration partner, Concilium Technologies.
“Although we are just a few months into our usage of the Platinum IP3 router, we already can see that speed of operation, ease of operation, ease of resource assignment and operational reliability are all evident in this new design router,” says Eddie McAlone, technical Director at SuperSport. “The Platinum IP3’s frame synchroniser capabilities have had a significant impact on our operations. What this means is that we have been able to hook together the new and old buildings and come straight on to the new router from the old building without any need for external hardware and glue products. The frame synchroniser reduces the hardware count, simplifies the system architecture and thereby increases system reliability in the long term.”
The broadcaster is transitioning programme playout into an entirely new state-of-the-art facility that started with 32 new HD channels. All of its SD and HD channels will eventually be played out from this new building. Earlier this year, SuperSport integrated a single frame Harris Broadcast Platinum IP3 Router, and within a few months placed an order for a second frame, which will tie together to create a 1152 x 1024 matrix.
The integrated Platinum IP3 router includes Harris Broadcast multiviewers used extensively across displays SuperSport’s playout facility. The complete installation also features Harris Broadcast router control panels and its network design, control and monitoring system, as well as its signal processing and interfacing equipment, including the Selenio media convergence platform, modular core processing devices, fiber interfaces and signal processing units.