With a need to expand its operations to even providing streaming and video-on-demand (VoD) services, CTC Media installed Imagine Communications’ solutions within its new playout system to deliver video signals over the SMPTE ST 2022-6 standard
Imagine Communications has implemented a new playout system for CTC Media, a Russian broadcaster. The platform is fully software-based, running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, and carrying media as uncompressed video signals using SMPTE ST 2022-6.
The new playout centre is designed and implemented by Russian systems integrator DNK Corporation, which has installed a list of Imagine’s solutions for CTC, including ADC automation, Versio virtualised playout, Version IOX storage, Nexio IP ingest, and Nexio Motion asset management.
Alexei Frolov, CTO of CTC Media, explained: “We needed to expand our facilities, and we wanted to be as efficient as possible in our operations. DNK and Imagine showed us that, using a software approach and the industry standard SMPTE ST 2022-6, we could achieve a flexible and production solution that is compact and power-efficient.”
The system is completed with Selenio MCP encoding, and the Epic MV hybrid IP multiviewer for system monitoring, with control and data networks and SDI/IP conversion managed by Magellan SDN Orchestrator, which allows CTC to design its own workflows. Both the Epic MV and Version are powered by Zenium, Imagine’s microservices-based software architecture.
In phase one, which is currently on-air, CTC is using the new playout platform to deliver seven SD and two HD channels. Phase two will include the addition of 26 channels, including eight simulcast SD/HD services. According to Imagine, the software approach ensures a much higher density of channels than a traditional installation, and future expansion can be accomplished “simply and quickly”.
Maxim Krivtsov, IT director of DNK Corporation, added: “The implementation of an uncompressed IP multi-channel playout system was a key project for everyone involved. We won this project because, together with Imagine Communications, we demonstrated that the flexibility and security of the Zenium-based software could provide broadcast-quality playout performance from uncompressed HD over IP, using industry standards.”