Facing the Music: Hawas TV

07 June 2005

Hawas TV, a music channel owned by the famous music composer, Ali Kanoo has selected Etere Automation and Scheduling with Music Manager for a professional and reliable performance.

Hawas TV is owned by the well-known music composer, Ali Kanoo. Seeing the huge potential that music channels have in the region to generate revenue through both interactive services as well as advertising, Hawas TV invested more than US $750,000 in the technology and its installation at its facility in DMC.

Systems for the facility was designed, planned, sourced, installed and integrated by the Qatar-based systems integrator, Salam Media Cast, Etere‘s distributor in the Middle East.

Already, Hawas TV, which plays both traditional folk Arabic songs as well as regional music, has begun to attract more than 18,000 SMSs a month.

What is more significant, though, is the very professional approach that the companies have taken with regards to the choice, installation and integration of broadcast equipment at their respective facilities. By contracting a well-known systems integrator to put in place their systems, they seem to indicate that they mean business.

Solutions at the facility are state-of-the-art, scaleable for future requirements and completely in a full caching technology.

The Master Control room (MCR) of Hawas TV includes a three-node video server from Seachange, which currently has a capacity of 200 hours at the bit rate of 15mbps. Each node can carry six hard drives and has a storage capacity of 147 GB each. Other solutions at Hawas include Pinnacle’s Dekocast for graphics support and Leitch’s Opus master control switcher, which is integrated with an SMS solution.

ETERE Automation System, the server and the rest of the broadcast equipment are locked through the GPS so that the software can ensure that there is no drift in timing. “This is primarily useful for all live and external feeds because it allows them to go directly on air,” says Shafi senior sales manager of Salam Media Cast.

Solution is controlled by the Etere Automation System, which is installed at several other such facilities in DMC as well.

ETERE Automation supplies an integrated automation system able to share information with all the TV infrastructures and the best protection for data and the On-air.

ETERE manages the scheduling with Music Manager. It is a must-have software for an easy management of the music scheduling.

ETERE Music Manager integrates with ETERE Automation to enhance music programs scheduling performances. With it the music scheduling system is frame-accurate, the last minute changes applied in real-time and it quickly makes music formats with minimum resources usage.