NEP’s all-in-one platform, developed in-house and in use on some of the world’s biggest productions, can now be integrated into broadcast facilities everywhere as a licensed service.
NEP Group has made its Total Facility Control (TFC) broadcast orchestration platform, currently used in NEP facilities to support productions around the world, available as a service for general use in broadcast facilities. TFC serves as a combined platform, tying together hardware and software from multiple vendors into one interface, simplifying control, automating tasks and standardising workflows.
Simplifying IP for Broadcast
NEP’s engineers originally built the TFC platform to solve the challenges they were encountering while trying to simplify IP in a broadcast environment, and over the past few years it has become the company’s in-house IP 2110 management system. The platform’s track record includes supporting major events and premier broadcasters including the Super Bowl, the PGA TOUR, The Masters Tournament, 2024’s global sporting event in Paris, Seven Network Australia, the World Cup and many other major productions across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
“Today, TFC is integrated across our NEP facilities worldwide, including our broadcast compounds and NEP Production Hubs. It’s become a solution our customers trust and depend on to deliver the biggest events to their audiences. We’ve learned so much over the years, and now we are making TFC available as a scalable service partnership,” said Soames Treffry, President, NEP Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
"TFC can now be used by any broadcaster, rightsholder, league, federation or sports and entertainment producer. The platform is also technology agnostic, giving customers the option to choose multiple vendors to support a particular show, and the service is always backed by our 24/7 global engineering support.”
TFC at Paris Olympics
Multiple Functions
The main functions available on the all-in-one TFC platform to engineering and production teams include broadcast control, software-defined networking (SDN), real-time monitoring and global technical support, 24/7.
As a broadcast control platform, TFC coordinates multi-vendor hardware and software, simplifying what is commonly a complex IP 2110 management process requiring considerable IP expertise. TFC simplifies this workflow through a straightforward touch-screen experience for operators, helping to automate complex tasks and standardize workflows. Broadcast Control is also relatively easy to learn without extensive training.
As a purpose-built SDN, TFC is designed specifically for broadcast environments, operating inside the TFC Broadcast Control system with no extra configuration required. The TFC SDN helps facilities to optimise bandwidth usage and run a leaner, more efficient network. Engineering teams can use the platform to monitor the network in real-time, receiving instant alerts and updates on network health, uptime, latency and device status in order to avoid impending issues.
Redundancy and Scalability for IP Environments
NEP developed the TFC platform as a service for organisations experiencing challenges managing IP, who don’t have in-house network engineering expertise, or migrating from traditional baseband environments to using IP, software and cloud production. TFC’s security layer is also a key component, extended to all devices on the network and making the platform suitable for highly visible or critical projects by increasing network integrity and avoiding downtime.
PGA TOUR Studios
Regarding redundancy, TFN’s use of ‘purple’ network architecture increases path diversity in IP systems that use spine & leaf architectures, by converging different types of network traffic. With enhanced resilience, users can optimise their bandwidth use and reduce the risk of latency in media transport, especially valued for live events, cloud-based production and many broadcast applications.
The Vice President of Broadcast Technology for the PGA TOUR Michael Raimondo said, “TFC makes a significant difference to engineering and production teams’ ability to manage many different layers of hardware and software on a major show site or in a production facility. The platform takes something very complex in our industry and simplifies it for operators, allowing producers and creators to focus on their number one goal of delivering impressive, original content to viewers and fans.”
Due to its scalability, TFC can support sporting events and entertainment productions of all sizes, coming from rightsholders, sports leagues or federations, news facilities, national broadcasters or major television producer or streamers, and it is now available as a licensed software solution.
TFC is accessed as part of NEP Group’s existing global media services, which include mobile units, speciality capture set-ups, equipment rentals, connectivity and studios. www.nepgroup.com
