Nab Portlet : NAB Product News

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Pro-Bel expands Morpheus automation Apr 8, 2008 - 11:51:38 AM

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Rising to the challenge presented by today’s ever-expanding distribution model, Pro-Bel is introducing two brand new functions to its Morpheus automation and playout system: Event Start Time Linking and Panoplay. Both are ground-up designs that introduce previously unseen levels of regionalization flexibility and resilience to the playout world.

Event Start Time Linking allows multiple channels to be triggered in time from a nominated event on a master channel. This is achieved by using a Declaration in the main channel and References in the regions. Broadcasters can guarantee that the regional channel differences will occur even when the event is moved, offering greater scheduling flexibility than ever before.

“For example, a broadcaster may have a sting that is its ad break intro and within that sting is a Declaration for triggering the regional channels. Wherever the user places that sting in the master schedule, all regions with related references will be played out at the same time when that sting appears. This unique approach provides a far more robust and flexible solution for managing regional programming,” explains Twine.

Panoplay provides broadcasters with truly reliable synchronization across multiple automation systems or remote sites. Software agents embedded in the very core of the system consistently monitor nominated channels for any changes. Using a Master/Slave configuration, changes made on one channel are reflected on the slave channel which can be located on a completely different site. “This offers customers the ability to set up disaster recovery sites and failover redundant systems that are constantly synchronized in real time to their main revenue-generating channels. Should the worst happen and failover to a back-up system be necessary the switch will be virtually seamless. No other system offers this level of flexibility or robustness across an entire system,” explains Howard Twine, Morpheus Product Manager.

“We are now coming across some very complex models in respect to regions and resilience and this has challenged us. Panoplay provides a previously unheard of level of flexibility in the way that geographically diverse automation systems can be linked,” adds Twine.