Silex Media was responsible for re-establishing the interfaces between the heterogeneous system components, as well as integrating the new Linux based workflows. During a planning and design phase, Silex Media identified multiple solutions from which the joint team of Euronews and Silex Media's professional services then selected the most appropriate. Besides delivering and implementing the SGI storage system, existing hardware and software components from Aveco, SGI and Avid had to be integrated with, which also included some specific developments. Integrating these different systems during regular operations was the main challenge for the joint team.
To speed up the editing process DAVID Systems' Hydrogen Media Accelerator (HMA) central ingest service was used to support the system workflow by adding edit-while-ingest functionality. The HMA technology has allowed Euronews to record more than 15 simultaneous streams on video servers, and provides access to the content of the 20 editing stations on the new shared storage. This content is available in less than 5 seconds after the recording has started.
"Silex Media offered a cost-efficient and pragmatic solution which is exactly tailored to our needs", said Cécile Levaux, Euronews Director Resources and Technologies. "Together we also succeeded in implementing everything without affecting our production workflows. After regular testing, the system is now in full production and running without any disturbances. Based on the positive experience we made with Silex Media we look forward to a long-term partnership."
About Euronews:
Launched in January 1993 euronews covers world affairs from a European perspective. Euronews is broadcast 24 hours a day, simultaneously in eight languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. Euronews presents a complete news bulletin every half hour, followed by in-depth programmes on business, Europe, sport, a review of press headlines from European major dailies, and the weather forecast. Euronews' feature programmes cover a wide range of topics including science, cinema, fashion, new technologies, and space.
Euronews is broadcast worldwide, reaching approximately 251 million households in 139 countries by cable, digital satellite and terrestrial distribution. The channel is also available on mobile operators (3G, VOD), on ADSL/High Speed Internet networks, and additionally shown live onboard certain international airline carrier. Viewers can watch Euronews on their PDAs and live on the Internet in Europe on RealNetworks Superpass. Euronews and no comment TV are also available on YouTube.
Euronews is the most-watched international news channel in Europe: every day, 2.9 million Europeans watch Euronews on cable and satellite, while another 3.7 million watch on terrestrial channels (Source: Euronews/Telmar Peaktime©, evaluation system based on viewer ratings, 1st quarter 2008).