I recently spent some time with my old NBCU colleague Shawn Maynard, (who is now) General Manager at Florical Automation Systems, discussing the company’s latest product offerings to Broadcasters and MVPDs (Multichannel Video Programming Distributors). While with NBCU, Shawn used Florical’s “Air Boss” to manage media within the owned and operated TV stations’ hubs in New York, LA and Miami. Today, he and his team are moving Florical and their time tested (at Univision, ABC and NBC O&Os, CNN, FOX) Air Boss into the world of cloud computing with Acuitas and Smart Central, giving Florical’s customers the ability to manage their media resources “virtually”, via the internet, from anywhere in the world.
Maynard: “Acuitas allows operators to centralize their master control and commercial playback functions without investing capital dollars in bricks and mortar”.
Maynard says, “We set out to create a system that dynamically hubs from anywhere, at any time. For example, if you are operating 20 television stations on Acuitas, any one of these stations can use Smart Central to become a virtual hub to all of the other stations in the group. Acuitas breaks down the silos among the local media distribution centers (or TV stations) and creates a platform from which the old hub model simply becomes part of a workflow shared, if desired, among these local centers. Automation needs to become invisible… not a task… just part of a system wide workflow where everybody picks up a piece of the chain.” Miami, for example, may serve as an HD content ingest center for the entire group, while Chicago may have the resources to cover Air and Server systems monitoring.
The system also addresses flaws found in the design of yesteryears’ fiber intensive, centralized hubs. In the early hub models, servers (and people) were housed centrally and media playback to local air was only as secure as the fiber that it was riding on. A New York hub to Chicago station fiber “backhoe fade”, for example, could leave local viewers watching a black screen while wreaking havoc on the station’s revenue (and reputation). With Acuitas, all automation software and content is housed locally on fully redundant raid 5 HP servers. If a component fails or if internet connectivity drops, the Acuitas system keeps your local media center on the air, seamlessly. The system issues real time exception reporting, email notifications on local systems health, missing content, post-air requirements and other user defined requirements.
Maynard states, “We have improved air safety, redundancy, eliminated fiber expense and given our customers the operational flexibility of cloud computing.”
Price comes as a pleasant surprise. Florical can fully automate a local media outlet with an HD play-out system, full “X/Y” redundancy with auto switchover, and about 60 hours of HD content storage for $120K per site. This is about half of what systems cost just two years ago.
A Florical customer can ease into the system and workflow by starting with a purchase of the Front-end. SD and/or “single thread” alternatives are available, giving media groups a $40K per site entry point, and the option to move into a fully redundant system as capital dollars become available.
Maynard says, “Smart Central is dynamic. It operates in a cloud. It’s a business model management tool. It gives a media company the ability to manage the chain within its own defined set of workflows and responsibilities. Nobody else offers this. Other automation company’s think in silos. Automation should be the ‘Microsoft Office’ of television, rather than silos. We’ve created an application for that.”
Florical will be offering EAS and School Closing capabilities later this year. “The system is downstream agnostic,” Maynard advises, “whatever the notification requirements are, the system can be tailored for each local market. “
Viewers and advertisers are setting the bar higher every day. They expect their local content to be presented in HD. Commercial and Public Television station groups, Independents, and MVPD’s are all facing the challenge of meeting these expectations in a time when Capital dollars are scarce. The introduction of cloud computing to the digital media management space presents a huge opportunity for these groups to not only respond quickly but to significantly reduce operating costs at the same time. Station groups can unite, forming a “critical mass”, combining their local HD commercial prep and playback functions within one co-op. PBS stations can combine program QC, media loading, playback and monitoring under one “virtual roof”. MVPD’s can upgrade their local avails to HD with centralized operations wherever they choose.
The virtual automation tools are here. The bricks and mortar are gone. Our imaginations (and a little investment) can do the rest.
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