Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations (IPBS) has announced that it is installing a Harris Broadcast networking system to share and manage broadcast content across all 17 member stations, which includes eight TV and nine NPR radio stations.
The network uses a new high-bandwidth fiber and IP video network and relies on several products from Harris Broadcast, including the Selenio media convergence platform for HD and SD video networking, the Intraplex IP Link 100 and 200 codecs for audio networking and the Magellan NMS solution for network-wide systems control and management.
In a statement, Roger Rhodes, executive director of IPBS, noted that they considered a number of vendors before selecting Harris Broadcast, and that the deployment will help them save money and better share content.
"Until now, real-time content sharing between our member stations has been extremely challenging due to the high cost of satellite time and technical limitations," said Rhodes in a statement. "When the build-out is complete, our stations will have the resources to do more live, real-time programming across the state in an efficient and streamlined manner. Also, our creative storytelling and HD contribution capabilities will vastly expand because it's no longer an impossibly expensive and cumbersome proposition."
Harris Broadcast will configure the entire system at WFYI in Indianapolis and train station engineers. Individual stations will migrate to the system as the I-Light network service becomes available locally.
Overall, Rhodes noted that the deployment offered an example of "how to gain the efficiencies of a centralized service without a corresponding sacrifice of local station autonomy, community service and branding."
Looking forward, it also "paves the way to build a joint master control operation serving IPBS TV stations from single location," he said. "We believe that sharing the maintenance of a single master control will realize significant savings on capital equipment."
