Pebble installed redundant two-channel integrated playout at France 3 Corse, replacing its older system in two months, supporting existing workflows and adding critical new capabilities.
On the island of Corsica, France Télévisions operates the station France 3 Corse, transmitting two channels, France 3 Corse and ViaStella, which focusses on Corsican language, news and cultural content. Until recently, France 3 Corse had a life-expired playout system in its headquarters in the capital Ajaccio, and looked to the market to source a modern replacement system that was compact and efficient.
As a result of that search, Pebble was hired to implement a new two-channel playout system at France 3 Corse. Pebble won the contract again in open tender, as they did for France Télévisions’ existing installation and successful deployment of this same platform in Martinique in the Caribbean and in St Pierre and Miquelon, off the Newfoundland coast.
Pebble’s Playout-in-a-Box
Pebble demonstrated the commercial and technical advantages of its playout-in-a-box system, which combines Pebble Automation with Pebble’s Integrated Channel playout engine – in a single server. This playout and management software supports existing workflows, while adding critical new capabilities.
Pebble’s integrated channel device puts audio, video and graphics functions into a compact format, replicating in software the ingest, channel branding and frame-accurate multi-channel playout functionality of a broadcast playout chain that traditionally would be made up of single-purpose devices.
Channel Flexibility
Like most broadcasters and service providers, France has specific requirements for each of its channels that may change during the lifetime of the installation – including the need to scale. Pebble’s Integrated Channel can be customised for different channel types, from closely scheduled channels to reactive channels that must handle an unspecified range of content formats, complex graphics and live inserts.
It integrates directly as a standalone device into a multichannel system, or acts as a component for a hybrid channel that relies on dedicated graphics and other devices. It has allowed the engineers to choose the optimum configuration for the financial and technical limitations of each channel, and meanwhile operators can work with the same user interface across the entire system, regardless of the chosen hardware or software.
To incorporate as much flexibility as possible, Pebble has a channel designer for users, who can define their channels by dragging and dropping from a list of processes. Specifying or changing the order in which processing happens, such as graphics overlay, DVE, ARC and audio shuffling is also simple, and the designs can be saved and recalled.
Comprehensive Redundancy
Furthermore, to set up complete resilience for the station’s two channels, the Pebble installation replicates the media database, automation and video servers over two physical devices, resulting in compact but comprehensive redundancy.
Pebble demonstrated the complete functionality of the proposal, including the redundancy, during the tender process. The company has local, French-speaking design and support teams, which gave further reassurance to France 3 Corse.
Manuel Brouard, Solutions Architect Manager at Pebble said, “This is an example of how local knowledge and market understanding help reach a great solution. With French-speaking staff able to really dig deep into the requirements, we could give them a precisely tailored solution that delivers for France 3 Corse, now and in the future. It also meant that we could go from contract to on air, including workflow development and training, in just two months.” www.pebble.tv
