MultiChoice Launches UHD Channels With Imagine Communications
Once logged in you can set content preferences to let us know what you are interested in and whether you want to receive email from us.
Already Registered? Login
MultiChoice, operator of Africa’s premier sports broadcaster, SuperSport, took UHD channels to air for the first time using a hybrid SDI-IP playout and infrastructure foundation from Imagine Communications.
A long-established user of Imagine playout and automation technology, MultiChoice added two UHD channels based on the Versio integrated playout platform to provide sports fans with comprehensive, premium-quality coverage of the championship football tournament in Qatar.
The MultiChoice playout center already delivers 32 channels from a fully redundant Versio architecture, ensuring robust and secure operations for its existing channels. The new project added two more channels — also with full N+N redundancy — to support the mission-critical premium sports content from the tournament. While the existing system is predominantly used for HD playout, the Versio IOX storage network enables easy scaling to accommodate additional bandwidth needed for UHD applications without affecting existing media or interrupting on-air operations.
The two new channels support SMPTE ST 2110 IP inputs at 4K, 50fps and HLG BT 2020 HDR from the host broadcaster. These are seamlessly switched in the Versio platform with stored content in SDR and HDR, at 25 and 50 fps. Audio is input as PCM (ST 2110-30) and output as PCM or Dolby (SMPTE ST 2110-31), with track shuffling as required, source substitution and Dolby up-mixing. A dedicated UHD workstation was configured to provide offline graphics creation for the duration of the event to alleviate any impact on the existing playout operation. The whole sub-system runs on COTS hardware on site in Johannesburg.
Imagine Selenio Network Processors (SNP) provide IP/SDI interfaces, as well as other video and audio processing, and operate under the control of the Magellan Control System, Imagine’s operator-centric management environment. Coupled with the Magellan Control System, the SNP enables media companies to efficiently and cost-effectively transition to UHD and HDR workflows over traditional or COTS-based, IP networking fabrics.
The new UHD channels are under the control of D-Series, which is integrated into the existing playout management system and is familiar to the operators. It also integrates seamlessly with MultiChoice’s advertising management and traffic system, which uses Imagine Landmark Sales and Landmark Rights and Scheduling software, ensuring that the broadcaster maximizes its revenue opportunities during this period of extremely popular viewing.
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.
Building Software Defined Infrastructure: Part 1 - System Topologies
Welcome to Part 1 of Building Software Defined Infrastructure - a new multi-part content collection from Tony Orme. This series is for broadcast engineering & IT teams seeking to deepen their technical understanding of the microservices based IT technologies that are…
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…