Canal Sur fully overhauled their Pebble automation infrastructure, installing new software-defined Pebble Integrated Channel playout engines for a resilient system in a compact design.
Public broadcasting organisation Canal Sur, serving the autonomous community of Andalucía in the south of Spain, is responsible for the delivery of a portfolio of regional channels across multiple platforms. With its headquarters in Seville, Canal Sur also manages localised content insertions (or opt-outs), based on the requirements of seven cities in the community.
Aware that its existing Pebble playout automation platform, in place since 2011, was nearing end-of-life for both software and hardware components, the team at Canal Sur took the opportunity to re-evaluate the station’s requirements. Working with systems integrator Datos Media, who are Pebble’s partner in Spain, they defined the environment that would sustain the broadcaster into the future.
The update would involve a full overhaul of the automation infrastructure. Now recently completed, the new system’s architecture is based on software-defined Pebble Integrated Channel playout engines. Integrated Channel is designed for resilience and supports multiple outputs per device, which has allowed Canal Sur to build a responsive, efficient system in a compact footprint. Their team are able to meet ingest, channel branding and multi-channel playout requirements.
Because each channel has its own range of needs that can change over time, the simplicity of Pebble’s channel designer is very helpful. To make changes to their software-defined channels, Canal Sur can drag and drop functional processes from a list, specifying the order in which processing occurs, such as graphics overlay, DVE, ARC and audio shuffling. These channel designs can be saved and recalled as required.
The new Pebble system integrates as a standalone device into the Canal Sur operational environment. Playout and asset management are orchestrated by the most recent version of Pebble’s Automation software. This system manages ingest and graphics with frame-accuracy, automated quality control and file transfers. It also handles outputs to new types of media platforms like Movistar and YouTube.
“The nature of broadcast has changed completely since we first installed Pebble automation, 14 years ago,” said Pedro Espina, CTO, Canal Sur. “We wanted to build much greater operational flexibility now and into the future, to cover multiple channels and the regional opt-outs, and at the same time we expect absolute reliability.
“Our close relationship with Pebble over an extended period gave us a great deal of confidence, and they were able to demonstrate to us how they could meet all our expectations in a compact and efficient implementation.” The two companies’ protracted relationship was important because a critical part of the project was about managing the transformation.
“We needed to ensure direct integration with other systems at Canal Sur, like traffic, asset management and scheduling,” said Jorge Pérez, Sales Manager, Datos Media. “We also had to ensure that staff understood and could access the new capabilities, while retaining the familiar parts of the Pebble user interface to avoid risks.”
Peter Mayhead, CEO, Pebble, said, “This project illustrates the importance of strong relationships between vendor and user. Canal Sur has used Pebble systems to manage their channels for well over a decade, and in that time each party has learned from the other, leading to a deep understanding of the requirements when it came time for a refresh.“ www.pebble.tv
