Bulgaria’s bTV Media Group taps PlayBox Neo

Bulgaria’s TV provider bTV Media Group is to use technology specialist PlayBox Neo’s playout servers for integration into a disaster recovery facility, designed to safeguard bTV’s broadcast channels against any discontinuity in the main transmission feeds.

The playout technology company’s Channel-in-a-Box is a turnkey playout server solution for broadcasting a single or multi TV channel both available in HD or UHD. The company said it provides a seamless workflow to keep a channel on-air by combining scheduling, ingest, playout, CG and interactive graphics within one box and remote tools to enhance QC checks, preparation and monitoring. The output can be SDI or IP streaming and is suitable for a variety of applications including traditional broadcast TV, pay-TV, playout centers and satellite operators. PlayBox Neo Channel-in-a-Box offers media ingest with Capture Suite, playout automation with AirBox Neo-20, interactive CG and graphics with TitleBox Neo-20, and scheduling with ListBox Neo-20.

TitleBox Neo-20 allows multiple layers of very high quality graphics to be created and manipulated during live transmission. Its capabilities include text selection with transitions, the creation of horizontal crawling text, vertically rolling credits and messages, still and animated logo graphics, clocks and countdowns, coming-up-next banners and the display of data coming in real time from sources such as live RSS feeds and social media. Graphics can be controlled automatically or manually with full interactivity.

SafeBox Neo is designed to replicate remote content to local playout server folders for safe playback. New content arriving in any of the remote watch-folders is automatically copied or moved to the local playout storage. New daily schedules are transferred along with their associated content. File paths in the playlists are automatically updated according to the new local storage. Expired daily schedule content is automatically deleted or moved to a pre-defined folder for manual deletion or archiving. Deletion can be performed automatically or with user approval of deletion lists.

“PlayBox Neo was a logical partner for this project as its ProductionAirBox Neo-20 playout servers operate very effectively in our news, studio productions and outside broadcast operations,” said Peter Dimitrov, technical director of bTV Media Group. “We were keen to provide full 1:1 protection for our main channel which carries a polythematic mix of programs plus a hot spare playout feed for our other five channels: bTV Action, bTV Cinema, bTV Comedy, bTV Lady and RING. All are produced and transmitted in HD. The new installation integrated easily with our existing traffic management software.”

“The PlayBox Neo team recommended a solution comprising four HD dual channel Channel-in-a Box playout servers with SDI and streaming inputs and outputs,” details Ivailo Pashov, bTV broadcast IT manager. “Integrated into the system is TitleBox Neo-20 graphics preparation software which allows efficient management of fixed and rolling text as well as static or animated channel branding images. We also have SafeBox Neo to manage content and playlists moving between our central storage at the DR center and the playout servers. Our headquarters are connected to the DR site by a dedicated fiber link.“

“Off-site DR centers are a very good safeguard against unforeseen circumstances such as regional power failure or flooding at a broadcast network’s primary playout facility,” adds PlayBox Neo CEO Pavlin Rahnev. “Well designed systems such as the one being used at bTV provide a high level of security including automatic alerts to relevant supervisors. They very quickly cover their investment cost in terms of business continuity and as part of a fully professional workflow.”