Harmonic hard at work in Flevoland
Omroep Flevoland (OF), an independent broadcaster in the Flevoland region of the Netherlands, has deployed Harmonic’s ProMedia Carbon file-based transcoding software to support its sports, entertainment, and 24/7 news broadcasting to the region’s 380,000 residents.
As part of the complete NIS4 solution from Dutch newsroom specialist Evoxe, ProMedia Carbon is used by OF for transcoding tasks integral to the station’s daily operations. Here are the workflow details: ProMedia Carbon is deployed at OF in a transcoding farm configuration with multiple nodes controlled by Harmonic Workflow System (WFS) software, which the NIS4 system uses to automatically create the video assets. The newsroom sends requests directly to the ProMedia Carbon transcoding farm to archive, retrieve, and ingest content; create thumbnails; process commercials; and distribute via the Internet. Common tasks like low-resolution copy creation are also automated by ProMedia Carbon, speeding up operations.
“ProMedia Carbon is an essential technology component of our news production workflow,” said Bram Liplijn, CTO at Omroep Flevoland. “In addition to the wide format support, high-volume transcoding, and video quality, ProMedia Carbon provides us with the crucial automation capabilities to keep operating expenses at a reasonable level by not requiring additional personnel to deliver 24/7 programming to these new distribution channels.”
“Being trusted with such an important role in Omroep Flevoland’s newsroom demonstrates the effectiveness of ProMedia Carbon. It can be relied upon to deliver the volume of content necessary for OF’s demanding news cycle, while providing the video quality and multiscreen viewing options subscribers expect,” said Ian Jefferson, vice president, sales and business development, Rhozet, at Harmonic Inc.
As part of the transcode process, ProMedia Carbon can handle a variety of critical operations including SD/HD conversion, PAL/NTSC conversion, logo insertion, color space conversion, color correction, and closed captions extraction.