Brochure

12/05/2010Etere Automation

A powerful, flexible and reliable solution to entirely automate your playout system

Etere Automation is a powerful, reliable and modular broadcasting system, able to enhance broadcasters' potential in terms of functions and workflow design. Its unique approach combines in a single product real-time device control and media asset management, offering a powerful mix of solutions and capabilities.
A system to fit all broadcaster needs. Etere Automation unique distributed architecture provides a system that can grow and change to fit all broadcaster needs. It runs on Windows OS and controls all the broadcast system devices.
Etere Automation uses the database of Etere Media Asset Management to integrate all the activities in a single environment. This allows you to retrieve all the assets stored in the station with no size limit, as well as to schedule management and last minute changes.



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SYSTEM BENEFITS

All the benefits of an integrated environment in a single package with a coherent interface.
Ingest system, common with Etere Media Asset Management, can be used for both archive and playout. Start and end points on videos are stored in the system database. Etere's approach makes terms such as single segment, multi segment and multi spot obsolete - all can be mixed and managed by the Etere database at your convenience. Barcodes can also be printed to catalogue tapes. Ingest jobs can be batched to minimize operator work. Live recordings are also supported and these can be manually triggered or pre-scheduled. Dub lists can be loaded from Traffic to avoid operators having to retype information. Play while recording is supported on every device.




MULTI-CHANNEL CONTROL

How to integrate several stations Multi-Channel Control makes schedule management that much easier. Several stations can be distinguished by their respective logos. All events can be previewed and their actual duration displayed. The schedule grid is represented horizontally. You can easily highlight different programs on different channels. Programs can be located at first glance thanks to an efficient employment of colour association. Each status and warning message uses different colours. Highlighted events on the screen show anomalies that need to be dealt with before broadcasting. Once verified, they can be skipped.
In the case of an excessive number of warning messages, the Etere Support team takes over, providing a cross-check service by means of the SNMP workstation.


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FAULT TOLERANT SOLUTIONS

Your data is protected from any inconvenience. Etere has the best fault tolerance on the market, because it's the only system with distributed playout intelligence and with real-time main and clone systems running.
Clients can rely on the best data protection and the most advanced Fault Tolerant technologies:
• Backup: As this is not normally active, significant resources are saved (i.e.: video server ports). Whenever the Main Broadcasting System crashes, the Backup takes over
• Backup One to Many: This is a single recovery system for several channels. It represents an affordable quality solution for at least three to five main channels
• Clone: This has two synchronized systems with automation controllers which run two independent copies of the same play-list, ready to switch in case of fault
• Disaster Recovery: This is the best assurance if the whole system crashes (i.e.: due to earthquakes, storms, etc.). In this case a Clone Server is synchronized to the Main Server in a different facility (i.e.:another city or country)


Executive Editor

SCHEDULING SYSTEM

The best tool for schedule management. Etere Automation comes with an integrated scheduling system based on SQL, where Executive Editor is the Automation multifunctional editor used to create sophisticated schedules. Executive Editor gives freedom in scheduling programs, providing simulations, analysis and high and low resolution previews. The schedule editor is frame accurate, and operators no longer have to deal with fillings or cuts. Everything can be decided directly by the scheduling office. Moreover, the integrated control of crowded clusters and secondary events preview (i.e. Logos, Crawls etc.), makes this editor the best tool for schedule management.


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DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE

Now a new technology is available, derived from Internet, which does not require a central unit, but only a lot of independent tasks that communicate with each other.
The On Air controller is a task that controls the ON AIR devices only, no other part of the system is under its control.
It’s completely independent from other system operations like Caching or manual recording.
But if one of the Caching processes fails, what happens in a distributed environment?
Nothing. The On Air system still runs, and all the other parts of the system are still functioning properly. While someone repairs the defective elements, the operator reconfigures the system. This way all TV activities and all devices are still running, but from a limited number of PCs. You can work as usual until the defective element is replaced. On a distributed architecture scalability is very simple: you can run a different process for each activity you need. Adding channels, devices or scheduling PCs does not involve any changes in the existing architecture. You can increase the number of tasks as you need.