Pharos Mediator chosen for Ascent Media Networks European Media Centre

Ascent
Media has chosen Pharos as a technology partner to expand the range of content
management services at its
Stephen
Street facility in central
London. Integrated into the existing
workflow, Mediator will enable migration to a more process-driven operation by
reorganising many of Ascent’s existing business processes. Pharos is working
closely with Ascent Media’s operations and technical teams on all stages of the
project to deliver the first phase system in a short time scale. The new system
is fully HD compatible.

“The further investment in the Media Centre represents continued growth in
advanced solutions for our clients and builds an even stronger foundation for
our move into the truly tapeless future,” comments Roger Henderson, Ascent
Media’s MD and Senior VP, Content Distribution. “Our digital archive and
distribution strategy will enable Ascent to deliver an even wider range and
greater scale of services than we are currently able to support. The Media
Centre is fully HD-compatible and capable of ingesting SD, ASI and HD to
support long-form programmes as well as short-form interstitials. It has full
satellite downlinking integration and connectivity to other Ascent Media sites in
New York, Los Angeles
and
Singapore.”

“A key objective to the technical design was to create an inherently
resilient system based around commodity IT processes and components,” adds
Andrew Hull, VP Broadcast Systems and Networks at Ascent. “It was also
important to achieve a solution that would enable Ascent to continue moving
forward without interrupting ongoing operations. Pharos met the challenge with
its powerful Mediator content management and workflow platform. Mediator meets
all our current business requirements and gives us the flexibility to expand
into new forms of delivery. Key requirements included automated and accelerated
ingest, electronic file processing and the ability to handle multiple languages
more efficiently. Mediator includes efficient quality control and allows
clients to view their material remotely. Crucially, it gives us a platform for
integrating a large digital library.”

“Ascent Media set out to enhance their capabilities in the Media Centre
and to expand the services it could offer to existing and new clients,”
comments Russell Grute from Pharos. “Using Mediator will improve
efficiencies for the high quality playout services that Ascent offers and
enable expansion beyond playout by providing services for new media. Mediator’s
new user interface with enhanced browse and search tools may help attract new
customers to Ascent; it is easy to upgrade workflows whilst in operation and
extremely user-friendly. Contracts were agreed and signed at the end of July
and project rollout on site commenced in August. The first phase is expected to
be operational by mid September. Ascent and Pharos will continue working in
close partnership to achieve the Phase One operational milestones”.