Annova Systems Integrates OpenMedia with Harris NewsForce

Annova Systems has integrated Annova OpenMedia with Harris Corporation’s NewsForce HD/SD production platform, a complete family of MOS-enabled newsroom tools that harness the speed, power and flexibility of the Harris NEXIO AMP advanced media platform.

“Today, newscasters want to integrate best of breed components such as NewsForce into their newsroom workflow. OpenMedia Interface Services allow them to do just that. It takes advantage of open standards to provide journalists with a unified desktop and a seamless production cycle,” explains Mr. Michael Schueller, General Manager of Annova Systems.

“NewsForce was designed to improve newsroom efficiency by embedding workflow media tools in newsroom computer systems such as OpenMedia. The new software-enabled integration with OpenMedia makes the power of NewsForce available to a growing number of journalist desktops, and paves the way to substantial productivity gains,” says Tim Thorsteinson, president of Harris Broadcast Communications.

With NewsForce, tools for managing the news workflow are presented in an ActiveX window on the OpenMedia desktop, allowing journalists and editors to schedule video ingests straight from the NRCS.

With each change to the rundown, the cueing of video and graphics are automatically updated.

NEXIO AMP also enables simultaneous low-resolution H.264 proxy encoding during high-resolution media ingest. OpenMedia users can browse these proxies using the integrated Harris NEXIO Mediabase plug-in, regardless of whether a recording is still on-going or not. For faster speed to air, journalists can insert place-holders in OpenMedia rundowns: as soon as a package is finalized by an editor, the corresponding placeholder is automatically replaced by the ready-for-air material. The OpenMedia rundown engine tracks all on-going tasks and processes: combined with the NEXIO MOS Playlist Manager (MPLM), it provides a seamless workflow in NewsForce editors and consistent playout on NEXIO AMP servers.