TV Center (IT Outsourcing Projects)

2022: Software development to create a single magazine of aired events

On February 7, 2022, the company, Vidau Systems one of system integrators Russia the segment, media announced that it had completed acceptance tests of the project "Development for ON the creation of a single journal of aired events (AsRun LOG) of two automation shoulders." broadcasting of the channel TV Center

This task was set by the technical directorate of the TV Center television company before the team of engineers Vidau Systems. The result was the development and integration of a software solution, which made it possible to form a single log of on-air events in the automation system of the air complex.

The TV-Center television company operates a broadcasting complex that provides 100% redundancy by "seamless" transition between the main and reserve shoulders of each of the broadcast channels. These are the basic requirements of the complex. To strengthen the technical control of broadcasting, the managing management of the television company expressed the need to receive up-to-date reliable information about the time and reasons for such transitions.

Developed by Vidau Systems specialists, the software product has technological and structural solutions, which opens up the following operational possibilities:

• Flexible setup system.
• Ensure iterative filling of a single event log (for each iteration, the latest events received since the previous iteration are analyzed and added to the log).
• Multithreaded parallel operation provides log generation for an unlimited number of broadcast channels.
• Provision of continuous operation with possibility of load distribution over time or over several working machines.
• Events during which switching between the main/standby arms of the channel occurred are reflected in a single log in accordance with their actual duration (before/after switching).
• The duration of secondary (child) events is analyzed and corrected according to the parent events.

The system for generating a single air event log is software that works at the junction of several hardware and software components from different manufacturers. The terrestrial complex of the TV-Center channel is built according to the full redundancy scheme, for each of the eight broadcasting channels there are two separate paths representing the main and reserve branches of the channel. The paths are controlled by the Pebble Beach Systems broadcast automation system. Switching between the main and standby arms of each channel is performed using the emergency switches GrassValley ChangeOver and monitored by the Cerebrum EVS Monitoring System (AXON). Thus, for each channel there are three sources of information about broadcast events:

• Log of channel main arm air automation system.
• Log of channel backup arm air automation system.
• The log of the system monitoring system containing records of the ChangeOver components switching.

The task of the unified event log generation system is to analyze these sources and form a single continuous log reflecting the sequence of events on each of the broadcast channels.

The resulting LOG-file (/ protocol event log) is stored PBS in the format of Marina AsRun Log XML (Pebble Beach Systems Ltd). This software solution made it possible to create a single system for generating the event log of the following integrated technological systems of the channel:

• The broadcast automation system  is Pebble Beach Systems.
• The system of record and reproduction of content -   Harmonic SpectrumX.
• Automated monitoring system -  EVS (AXON) Cerebrum.
• The components of the Change Over process paths  are Grass Valley.

The project was implemented by VIDAU Systems turnkey. When planning the work, all the customer's wishes were taken into account, as well as training of the television company's personnel.