The Money Channel Invests In Profile XP Media Platforms From Grass Valley Group

Enhancing the flexibility of its broadcast systems infrastructure, The Money Channel — a major new financial news and information service, which launched in February 2000 - has invested in two Profile XP Media Platforms, the latest generation of the Profile^® digital video server line, from leading broadcast systems vendor, Grass Valley Group.

The Profile XP Media Platforms are installed in the Central Apparatus Room at The Money Channel's state of the art, purpose-built studios right on the edge of the City of London in Wapping. They are being used for the transmission of all long-form programming and commercials on the channel, which is available via BSkyB Broadcasting.

Both Profile XP Media Platforms feature 48 hours storage. The first is employed as The Money Channel's main transmission server. The second is used both for redundancy and for playing out commercials.

Chris Pearman, Head of Engineering at The Money Channel pinpoints two main reasons for choosing the Profile XP Media Platform. "Firstly, it is compatible with most of the other equipment at the station, in particular the newsroom and station automation systems. Secondly, in contrast to other video servers available today, the user has complete flexibility in choosing the number of inputs and outputs — particularly important at The Money Channel, where we have several edit suites and two main studios, all feeding into the Profile XP."

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Editors Note

The Grass Valley Group knows more about high-quality video than anybody else—especially as video goes digital. Interactive television. Digital cinema. Data-enhanced broadcasting. Internet. It's a world of Digicasting—of Media Without Bounds. Whether online or on the air, the Emmy award-winning Grass Valley Group, a privately held digital media leader, has the hardware, software, and new media technologies necessary to get content wherever it needs to go. For the latest Grass Valley Group product information, see www.grassvalleygroup.com.

Grass Valley Group and Profile are registered trademarks and Grass Valley is a trademark of Grass Valley Group Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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Background Information

Profile XP Media Platform

While traditional video servers offer only playback and storage capabilities, the Profile XP Media Platform, with its Microsoft Windows NT architecture and standard networking and storage technologies is extensible to new applications inside and outside a broadcast facility.

The platform already hosts more digital content than any other broadcast solution in the market today and enjoys the support of more than 50 software developers. It also has the industry's most open platform, flexible enough to support MPEG, DVCPRO, HD, AC3 and Dolby E formats, MPEG Transport Streams (MTS), and Internet streaming formats such as Microsoft Windows Media. The Profile XP Media Platform is also easily upgradeable — it takes just a change of codec and I/O boards to move from standard- to high-definition signal processing.

The Profile XP Media Platform software portfolio includes the Grass Valley Group's ContentShare, NetCentral, InSync and WebAble solutions and technologies.

ContentShare is the Grass Valley Group's software platform for accessing and managing digital assets regardless of their type or location; ContentShare technologies easily link video with its related text, audio and graphics assets. Built with Internet-standard technologies, the ContentShare platform uses the Java development language for platform independence and the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) standards for describing and formatting data.

Leveraging both ContentShare and the Profile XP is WebAble, the Grass Valley Group's technology for streamlining and simplifying the process used by broadcasters and video professionals to re-purpose their content for Webcasting and Web distribution.

NetCentral software uses the industry-standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to centrally monitor the status of networked Profile XP Media Platform devices from any location worldwide.

The software proactively reports warning messages that can help flag a dangerous condition before it becomes catastrophic — even sending an e-mail message or ringing a pager to alert support staff. And, InSync application supports the Grass Valley Group's zero-tolerance for failure by maintaining two servers as a mirrored pair; if a primary unit fails or needs to be taken offline, the software enables the back-up to take over so record and replay operations can continue seamlessly, and for quick automatic resynchronisation over a high-speed Fibre Channel or Ethernet network connection once the unit is back on line.

For the latest Grass Valley Group product information, see www.grassvalleygroup.com.

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