Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced the completion of a major broadcast facility upgrade at Ten Sports, part of the Zee Entertainment Group. Ten Sports’ new broadcast facility, recently relocated from the UAE to India, relies on an end-to-end sports production and playout solution from Imagine Communications and supports the production and distribution of its entire family of channels.

Renowned as the leading sports network in Asia, Ten Sports operates five sports channels across 169 countries and owns the long-term broadcast rights for cricket boards in South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The solution includes the Imagine Communications D-Series™ automated content management and distribution system controlling Nexio® playout servers running Nexio Motion™ and Insight™ software that create automated processes to move and manage media. Ten Sports executes ingest, asset management and playout on a Nexio Farad™ high-performance online storage network with intrinsic mirroring for absolute content security. Imagine Communications also provided the core infrastructure at Ten Sports, including the Nexio IconMaster™ branding and master control switcher. The industry-leading Platinum™ MX router with integrated Platinum™ SX Pro multiviewer capabilities provides signal routing, distribution and monitoring capabilities, enabling clean and quiet switching for on-air applications in a small physical footprint.

The upgrade has enabled Ten Sports to optimize workflow across the network, from ingest to playout, including all media management, branding and master control. Rich metadata tagging gives Ten Sports the flexibility to retrieve sports content anytime at any stage.

“Our existing IT infrastructure was dated and consisted of independent islands of storage, which lacked fast throughput — slowing the entire ingest to playout process,” said Sanjeev Bhargava, Vice President – Engineering, Ten Sports. “We selected Imagine Communications to enable us to build a more efficient workflow capable of handling the demands of modern day sports production, from ingest through to playout and archive. Furthermore, as our parent company, Zee Entertainment, is also an Imagine Communications’ playout solutions customer, we knew this solution was robust enough to meet our exacting requirements.

“The Nexio IconMaster is a key component of the system and is exclusively used by our sports channels, streamlining the function of fade-in/out during live switching from one event to another — a feature that is extremely important in a sports production environment.”

“There are many factors to consider during any relocation and upgrade,” added Raj Yadav, Regional Sales Manager South Asia at Imagine Communications. “For Ten Sports, this included the ability to work with a single supplier to provide the end-to-end technology and have this underpinned with local support. For a group that has eight sports channels covering regional and international sporting events, keeping the facility on air during the relocation and upgrade process was critical.”

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp. is a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communications provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

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Imagine Communications Showcases Depth and Breadth of UHD Portfolio at IBC2015

September 7, 2015, 1:05 pm

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Company to demonstrate market readiness of Ultra-High Definition support across SDI and IP workflows

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, will demonstrate its UHD readiness across the company’s networking and playout platforms at the upcoming IBC exhibition and conference in Amsterdam. The addition of capabilities to support UHDTV1 and 4K resolutions, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Expanded Color Gamut, and High Frame Rate as features of the company’s market-leading portfolio reinforces Imagine Communications’ long history of early and comprehensive support for the next generation of media and entertainment industry technologies.

“This is a dynamic time in our industry, and we are excited to be working with our customers to incorporate next-gen technologies like UHD into their workflows,” said Steve Reynolds, Chief Technology Officer, Imagine Communications. “Investments in innovation have infused our industry-leading, future-proofed products and solutions – from routing and processing platforms to servers, transcoding and encoding systems – with the ability to meet our customers’ latest and most demanding competitive requirements. The pivotal pieces of a viable UHD business model are steadily falling into place. Whenever our customers are ready to move to UHD, Imagine Communications is ready to take them there.”

UHD-compatible solutions on display at IBC include the company’s flagship Platinum™ IP3 router, which supports quad-link formats and features multiple integrated functionalities – operating under the Magellan™ SDN Orchestrator software control layer – as well as the industry-leading Nexio AMP® integrated server solution, which supports UHD playback.

Visitors to the Imagine Communications booth will also see a demonstration of the versatile Selenio™ MCP processing, compression and IP networking platform, featuring the recently released UHD up- and down-conversion modules. These new modules enable state-of-the-art 10-bit motion-adaptive processing, helping to ensure high video quality and integrity. This will allow broadcasters and media companies to leverage their existing HD assets, converting entire libraries of high-value content into the UHD digital video format for new revenue streams across today’s distribution platforms and a growing diversity of devices.

For UHD delivery to the end user, Imagine Communications will highlight the capabilities of SelenioFlex™ File. By supporting HEVC UHD Main 10 and Interoperable Master Format (IMF) file-based transcoding, SelenioFlex File enables UHD on-demand workflows for content distributors and other media companies. Imagine Communications will also showcase live, real-time HEVC encoding of UHD, featuring the SelenioFlex™ Live solution.

Imagine Communications’ UHD-enabled portfolio also includes the distribution and fiber optic modules of the long-standing broadcast staple, the Selenio 6800+™ signal processing platform. In addition, the versatile Selenio X100™ 1RU dual-channel frame synchronizer and converter is future-proofed for UHD.

Imagine Communications is committed to accelerating innovation through interoperable architectures that are compliant with industry-recognized formats and defined standards. The company is one of the first solution suppliers to formalize alliances with both the Sony IP Live and intoPIX TICO initiatives for managing high-resolution UHD formats.

“We’ve designed our products to support these two different approaches to reducing the tremendous bandwidth required for the delivery of UHD in both IP and SDI environments,” added Reynolds. “This allows our customers to have the flexibility of choosing the technology that best fits their current or future business strategies.”

For more information on end-to-end UHD workflows, please visit Imagine Communications at IBC2015, Stand 4.AMT.

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Nexio® IconStation™

September 8, 2015, 8:27 am

≫ Next: Imagine Communications Provides Complete News Production and Playout Solution for People’s Television Network in the Philippines

≪ Previous: Imagine Communications Showcases Depth and Breadth of UHD Portfolio at IBC2015

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Imagine Communications Provides Complete News Production and Playout Solution for People’s Television Network in the Philippines

September 8, 2015, 2:32 pm

≫ Next: Nexio IconMaster 3 9 Installation and Configuration Manual

≪ Previous: Nexio® IconStation™

Solution enables integrated workflows, faster turnaround and improved efficiency across all areas of operation

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced it has implemented a major upgrade of a news production and playout facility at People’s Television Network Inc. (PTNI) in the Philippines through its reseller Composite Technology Inc. This upgrade provides the broadcaster’s PTV4 news channel with the ability to deliver higher-quality news packages to air faster and more efficiently, while retaining the control and management needed to preserve the station’s reputation.

A government-owned and controlled television station, PTNI is one of the leading news and sports broadcasters in the Philippines. The core of the network’s programming is news and public affairs, and the station has adopted the concept of a “newspaper on television” style of reporting. PTNI is also the official broadcaster of major international sporting events and has covered the Olympic Games since 1988.

The Imagine Communications solution covers two distinct areas of operation: the highly dynamic and reactive production and editing area for the news system and a dedicated area of the scheduled playout. Both are built around scalable Imagine Communications Nexio® video servers, with Nexio Motion™ content management and Insight™ advanced metadata systems providing intelligence, automation and accessibility. The integrated system simplifies the management of the content on and between the operational areas, as well as allowing journalists to locate and use the right content at the right time.

Critical for the dynamic live news presentation, where events cannot be missed or lost, is the content storage system, which uses the Nexio Farad™ high-performance online storage network. This incorporates Imagine Communications’ Intrinsic Mirroring™ for absolute content security and resilience. Playout control uses Imagine Communications’ market-proven ADC™ playout automation system, along with IconStation™ graphics and Nexio IconMaster™ branding and master control switcher.

Both edit-in-place high-resolution Velocity™ ESX workstations and proxy-based Velocity PRX clients are also included in the solution. The Nexio server system automatically generates browse-resolution proxies and instantly conforms offline edits for maximum speed in getting stories to air, as well as providing access to all journalists and editors.

“Our ambitious plans meant we needed a more efficient workflow in news production,” said Richard Valdez, engineering head at PTNI. “Because it was able to deliver a complete and well-integrated solution, we were confident that Imagine Communications was the right partner to help us raise production standards and operational efficiency.”

“We are delighted to help PTNI with its news production and playout modernization program,” said Joe Khodeir, senior vice president, APAC, for Imagine Communications. “Our integrated broadcast solutions are known around the world to be reliable and robust, which is critical for a news channel, where getting on air first is a key priority.”

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Nexio IconMaster 3 9 Installation and Configuration Manual

September 29, 2015, 1:50 pm

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≪ Previous: Imagine Communications Provides Complete News Production and Playout Solution for People’s Television Network in the Philippines

Master Control Switcher

File:

iconmaster_instal_configuration_20150708.pdf

Products:

Nexio® IconMaster™

Category:

Product Manuals

Products:

Master Control, Branding & Graphics

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ImagineLIVE! Panel: Virtualized Master Control: Do More. Spend Less.

October 12, 2015, 3:00 pm

≫ Next: Content Transmitter 2.1.2 User Guide

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Description:

Speakers: Mike Strein (Disney/ABC Television); Tim Mendoza, Stephen Smith (Imagine)

Video:

ImagineLIVE! Panel: Virtualized Master Control: Do More. Spend Less.

Resource Type:

Video

Solutions:

Virtualized Master Control

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Content Transmitter 2.1.2 User Guide

August 27, 2015, 8:50 am

≫ Next: Content Receiver 2.1.2 User Guide

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File:

content_transmitter_2.1.2_user_guide_20140320b.pdf

Legacy Information:

Playout
Master Control, Branding & Graphics
Graphics
Nexio Connectus

Products:

Nexio® Connectus®

Category:

Product Manuals

Products:

Master Control, Branding & Graphics

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Content Receiver 2.1.2 User Guide

August 27, 2015, 8:50 am

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≪ Previous: Content Transmitter 2.1.2 User Guide

File:

content_receiver_2.1.2_user_guide_20140320b.pdf

Legacy Information:

Playout
Master Control, Branding & Graphics
Graphics
Nexio Connectus

Products:

Nexio® Connectus®

Category:

Product Manuals

Products:

Master Control, Branding & Graphics

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After Effects CS3 and CS4 Plugin

August 27, 2015, 8:50 am

≫ Next: After Effects CS6 and Creative Cloud Plugin

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This note provides instructions on using the Nexio After Effects Via Plugin. After you install the plugin you can import VIA files into Adobe® After Effects® CS3 and CS4. You can also export an After Effects movie as a VIA file to use in a Nexio® graphics application.

File:

after_effects_cs3_and_cs4_plugin_20140328.pdf

Legacy Information:

Playout
Master Control, Branding & Graphics
Graphics

Products:

Infocaster™

Nexio® Channelbrand™

Category:

Supporting Documents

Products:

Master Control, Branding & Graphics

Digital Signage

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After Effects CS6 and Creative Cloud Plugin

August 27, 2015, 8:50 am

≫ Next: Nexio G-Scribe 8.0.3 HF6 Hot Fix Note

≪ Previous: After Effects CS3 and CS4 Plugin

This note provides instructions on using the Nexio After Effects VIA Plugin. After you install the plugin you can import VIA files into Adobe® After Effects® CS6 and Creative Cloud. You can also export an After Effects movie as a VIA file and accompanying ("sidecar") audio file to use in a Nexio® graphics application.

File:

after_effects_cs6_and_creative_cloud_plugin_20140328.pdf

Legacy Information:

Playout
Master Control, Branding & Graphics
Graphics

Products:

Infocaster™

Category:

Supporting Documents

Products:

Master Control, Branding & Graphics

Digital Signage

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