BVE 2016 Preview: PlayBox Technology

PlayBox Technology | Stand M10 | Website: www.playboxtechnology.com

PlayBox Technology, a global provider of broadcast television playout and channel branding, will debut the CloudAir Universal Playout and Streaming Platform to UK broadcasters at stand M10 at the BVE 2016 show in London’s ExCel, Feb. 23-25.

“CloudAir offers a gateway through which new television channels can be established without the usual preliminary investment in playout infrastructure,” says Don Ash, president of PlayBox Technology. “Channel proprietors are then free to invest their startup capital in creating or acquiring content from which in turn they can build up a healthy revenue stream.

“From an operational perspective, CloudAir allows new television channels to be established in little more time than it takes to make a phone call to the service provider. This is particularly important to anyone creating transient OTT channels supporting a short-running programme series such as the Olympics.

“CloudAir can be purchased from PlayBox Technology on a standard software licensing model or via partner companies offering software-as-a-service. Content owners stand to gain unsurpassed flexibility in the way they manage their business model, whether starting a new channel, extending their transmission hours, adding new programme streams, or planning ahead for advanced transmission standards such as 4K ultra-high-definition. The PlayBox Technology team understands the specific needs of broadcasters and can respond rapidly to issues such as new encoding protocols and transmission standards.

“CloudAir is a unified workflow environment based on an extremely powerful set of software-centric modules. It can be tailored to provide exactly the capabilities customers require for their current activities, including ingest, source transcoding, quality control, media asset management, production, post-production, subtitling, scheduling, playout and transmission. CloudAir can be operated in fully automated mode with the option of making schedule alterations or live inserts at any time in response to late-breaking news.

“CloudAir is easy to operate and can be used locally or remotely via a standard HTML web browser. The control interface provides all the information an operator needs to process the task in hand, including the freedom to decide the order in which these processes are performed. Automated alerts warn if any element of a schedule requires additional attention before being transmitted.

“Like our established AirBox product range, CloudAir is in constant development as we add new refinements and features to match the needs of the advancing broadcast world. PlayBox Technology understands the needs of broadcasters to an extent which transcends the skills of our competitors. We know the importance of pixel-precise timing. CloudAir gives operators the freedom to insert live content between prescheduled programmes whenever a late-breaking story makes this desirable or imperative.”