PlayBox Neo Powers TBN Africa’s Playout System Expansion

TBN Africa is part of Trinity Broadcast Network, the world’s largest religious television network. Supplied and integrated in primary-plus-backup configuration by PlayBox Neo’s Johannesburg-based distribution partner Pro Sales Broadcast, the original system went live in Q2 2018 for viewers in more than 54 countries across the continent.

TBN Africa produces a variety of programs which are integrated with selected content from the network's headquarters in California and around the world. Its playout system is based on AirBox servers which provide the freedom to preschedule in advance of transmission while retaining the ability to over-ride with live content whenever required. Upgrading to latest-generation AirBox Neo-20 makes the workflow even more efficient, including full support for HD and the potential to playout in UHD.

"The expanded PlayBox Neo system at TBN Africa includes a new fully redundant playout channel comprising two AirBox Neo-20 servers," comments Pro Sales Broadcast Managing Director Jonathan Sack. "A special requirement for this project was the need to configure the playout servers to convert SCTE 104 insertion cues to the SCTE 35 protocol. This was handled as a software process and integrated closely with the PlayBox Neo platform. Each server incorporates TitleBox Neo-20 graphics preparation software and a SafeBox Neo transfer engine. New content arriving in any of the source watch-folders is automatically copied by SafeBox Neo for secure pre-transmission. Content, playlist, CG templates, subtitle list and metadata files are held in relevant folders for final manipulation and then actual delivery. An automatic failover switch constantly monitors the primary server output and selects the secondary server if a significant fault is detected. Both servers are connected to a ListBox Neo-20 preparation workstation which provides all the facilities needed for schedule creation and playlist editing. The result is low stress or in fact no stress."

You might also like...

HDR & WCG For Broadcast: Part 3 - Achieving Simultaneous HDR-SDR Workflows

Welcome to Part 3 of ‘HDR & WCG For Broadcast’ - a major 10 article exploration of the science and practical applications of all aspects of High Dynamic Range and Wide Color Gamut for broadcast production. Part 3 discusses the creative challenges of HDR…

IP Security For Broadcasters: Part 4 - MACsec Explained

IPsec and VPN provide much improved security over untrusted networks such as the internet. However, security may need to improve within a local area network, and to achieve this we have MACsec in our arsenal of security solutions.

Standards: Part 23 - Media Types Vs MIME Types

Media Types describe the container and content format when delivering media over a network. Historically they were described as MIME Types.

Six Considerations For Transitioning To Cloud Based Video Distribution

There are many reasons why companies are transitioning from legacy video distribution workflows to ones hosted entirely in the public cloud, but it’s not a simple process and takes an enormous amount of planning. Many potential pitfalls can be a…

IP Security For Broadcasters: Part 3 - IPsec Explained

One of the great advantages of the internet is that it relies on open standards that promote routing of IP packets between multiple networks. But this provides many challenges when considering security. The good news is that we have solutions…