Dalet News Suite Powers Israeli 24-hour News Channel

Dalet Digital Media Systems, a leading provider of Media Asset Management (MAM) solutions software and services for content producers, has provided its powerful and highly versatile turnkey system, Dalet News Suite, for Israel’s new 24-hour news channel, i24news. Based in Jaffa port, Tel Aviv, the broadcaster transmits in three languages: English, French, and Arabic, via a combination of satellite, cable, and Internet. The impressive installation features the MAM-driven Dalet News Suite solution, two Dalet Brio 4:4 ingest and playout servers, Harmonic ProMedia Carbon transcoders, Quantum LTO Tape Library, and Brightcove CMS. In all, over 100 user workstations are deployed at i24news.

“Our mission is to cover international news with a new perspective that is lacking in today’s fast-paced, channel-zapping culture,” explains Effy Lupo, CTO of i24news. “By broadcasting in three languages, i24news is dedicated to presenting another voice from the Middle East, based on the twin pillars of independence and openness.” He continues, “With any operation such as this, there are always economic challenges to be met, but quality must never be compromised. Dalet was absolutely the right choice as a partner in this operation because the complete system allows us to rationalize the workflow while maximizing the output and revenue for a minimal production cost.”

Working closely with i24news, Dalet Professional Services designed, installed and configured the system. Dalet also trained journalists, ensuring the sizeable newsroom operation was fully functional within a record-setting 90 days.

Johann Zemmour, Dalet’s director of sales, says, “Dalet’s skilled professional services team worked closely with i24news staff on all aspects of the operations, from workflow design to managing the project installation and training staff. Given the complexity of the operation and number of partners involved, this was an extraordinarily fast deployment.” He adds, “We can credit a portion of this success to the maturity of the Dalet News platform. With so many installations in newsrooms around the world, the Dalet News Suite solution can be implemented in virtually any newsroom operation turnkey. No customization needed. Dalet News Suite already encompasses the production capabilities, integrations and underlying workflow engine for the modern broadcasters.”

Dalet News Suite is an end-to-end news production and automation system that meets the demanding requirements of multichannel newsrooms such as i24news in a single turnkey solution. Over 150 journalists use Dalet to access and share the same content for the news bulletins, talk shows, and magazine programs in all three languages.

Material arriving at the station is ingested into the Dalet system via Dalet Brio servers. These high-performance units are built on standard IT hardware and support SD/HD ingest and playout in multiple and mixed formats, such as the XDcamHD used by i24news. As content is ingested, Dalet automatically creates proxy versions for use in content review and production, and for putting program rundowns together. i24news journalists access Dalet’s easy-to-use tools to create compelling multimedia stories and newscasts from their desktops. And thanks to the Dalet MAM core, the same ingested material is available for craft editors using Adobe Premiere for the creation of long form programming.

In addition, Dalet News Suite provides a versatile editorial and production workflow engine that streamlines every aspect of news production, delivery and archiving. For example, in the production environment, it integrates with the station’s Vizrt graphics system to provide graphics (such as lower thirds and captions) generated in the three languages. For delivery to multimedia platforms, Harmonic ProMedia Carbon transcoders convert files into appropriate formats ready for publishing. Those files are then delivered in the appropriate format to the i24news website using the Brightcove Content Management Service (CMS).

Lupo adds, “Having an interface with a comprehensive CMS is critical. With Dalet being linked to Brightcove, i24news is able to integrate services and content better for distribution over the web and multi-platforms that have become so crucial in today’s 24/7 news environment.”

Archiving is another vital part of the news operation, and here Dalet supplied a Quantum LTO tape library for storage. Transmissions are also ingested into the Brio servers, in readiness for later reruns through the broadcaster’s Harmonic Spectrum servers in Master Control.