Guillermo Lewin, Technical Manager at FORT MEDIA, explains that the Video Server can work directly with an extern server. It takes material and emits it without any server. He also praises the emission quality of the CG5 character generators.
“The preference for the Video 5 has always existed. In 2001, I have to assemble the Boca TV channel and I have to make a decision about buying a video server. There were several options in the market, but I had to ignore foreign companies, because they were expensive. Among national companies, I found some which didn’t adapt to the necessities of the channel program and they were also complex. Later, I used the Video 5 Server and I realized it was what I really needed. It is a flexible, easy-to-use system and it has a great advantage: it is developed in Argentina, so if I have any problem, I can contact the company.”
“In Boca TV, the server was divided into an ingest unit and a programming unit, which facilitate the modifications. The last six months of the channel, all the material done previously was emitted. This means that we had to upload everything on the server that was working for more than six or seven months, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, when I started working in Fort Media, we needed a server, and I had no doubt to buy Video 5 because it is reliable, flexible and it adapts to what we need”, says Lewin.
He explains how this server integrates to the producer’s workflow. In Fort Media, they work with two daily programs, and one program per week (all of them used for live broadcasting) plus two more finished programs. They don’t use a play out system because everything is included in the server.
“One of the most interesting things is that the server allows us to convert live shows in tapeless. In our workflow, we have three stages of edition and a composition and edition system associated with a NAS of 24 Terabyte, with a LTO backup of 36 Terabyte. The NAS is directly connected through the net to the Video 5 servers. The NAS in the edition stages are sent to the NAS and we take the SQL from the server, i.e. we create an emission list. Such material is never received in the Video 5 server because it is directly emitted from the NAS. It is an interesting detail because the Video 5 can work with an extern server, take the material and emit it without any server. Thus, we can work the three live programs.
Lewin points out that the emission of the CG5 is perfect, they have broadcast quality. “Technically, the CG5 has many layers and it is useful for lives shows. It is ideal for a production company like ours because unlike a tv channel, we provides services. This means that we don’t know what the customer will bring to us. In a TV channel, there is always someone who decides the esthetics of the graphics and designs, but when services are provided, the material that the customer brings has to be uploaded and emitted in a very short time.”
“The graphic operator of the production company takes such material and introduces it. Thus, we use the server to emit graphs. A lot of people use the character generators with graphs. We found out that it is really easy because the server takes an image JPG and registers it. It is easier to emit a graph because Video 5 has certain facilities, especially at remote level where the graph can be emitted at the right time, without using the character generators.”
Lewin and his partners decided to acquire a second server because they have two continued programs every day. If they had any type of problem, three programs couldn’t be on air. As an alternative measure, such two servers work with SQL, which means that any of them can be used with the same material, taking them from the NAS. “There was also a superposition between the shows of Viale and Lanata, so we have to upload material while Viale was on the air. The remote form is used with a program called VNC, which is something like a remote desktop.” They decided to put a second server in order to upload the material from the second show without modifying the first one.
Guillermo Lewin – FORT MEDIA
