RENNES, France — Nov. 8, 2010 — Thomson Video Networks announced today that France Télévisions has installed a disaster recovery solution using Thomson’s Sapphire broadcast servers and ProConsultant Informatique Louise™ broadcast management software. The project, which was originated by Christian Augereau, technical director, Réseau France Outre-Mer, consisted of Thomson Video Networks and ProConsultant Informatique collaborating to develop a tightly integrated solution for the French national broadcaster.
The disaster recovery system provides backup for 19 channels at the headquarters of France Télévisions in Paris. The Sapphire servers from Thomson Video Networks provide a comprehensive feature set within the compressed domain, operating under the control of the ProConsultant Informatique Louise software package. The Sapphire supports MPEG-2 and H.264 formats, re-encoding audio and video dynamically to guarantee seamless frame-accurate transitions, and provides additional master control switcher, graphics inserter, and character generator functionality.
“The combination of Thomson servers and the ProConsultant Informatique Louise solution has produced a dynamic and flexible system for scheduling, media asset management, and playout,” said Augereau. “This gives us a highly compact and dense disaster recovery solution, which will be efficient to operate and will provide considerable energy savings.”
The Sapphire transport stream server combines Thomson expertise in MPEG processing with a modular software and hardware design. It offers a particularly high-performance MPEG I/O, a scalable storage capacity, and a wide range of control interfaces. This architecture enables operators to record, store, and play back multiple streams, and functions as a versatile TV-on-demand platform.
“The cooperation between Thomson Video Networks and ProConsultant Informatique has resulted in an innovative and cost-effective system for performing compressed linear playout,” said Christophe Delahousse, president, Thomson Video Networks. “Broadcasters particularly appreciate a dense feature set along with the resulting space efficiency in this current climate, where they must contain costs while simultaneously developing new services.”
About France Télévisions
France Télévisions is the French public national television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company currently funded by the revenue from television license fees and commercial advertising. France Télévisions is a supporter of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) initiative (a consortium of broadcasting and Internet industry companies including SES Astra, OpenTV, and Institut für Rundfunktechnik) that is promoting an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.
About ProConsultant Informatique
ProConsultant Informatique S.A. develops state-of-the-art management software for media organizations. Based in Metz, France, the company’s flagship business management software Louise and its air time sales/traffic system Cindy are enterprise solutions offering straight-forward, intuitive workflows with a sophisticated infrastructure that provides maximum control and access to information and metadata for management, data exchange, analysis, and reporting. With more than a decade of experience, reliability, and a proven track record in nearly 200 television and multimedia organizations worldwide, ProConsultant Informatique exemplifies excellence in innovation and performance. For more information about ProConsultant Informatique, please visit www.proconsultant.net.
About Thomson Video Networks
From the very onset of digital TV broadcasting, the Thomson name has been synonymous with supplying expertise, quality, and reliability to the world’s leading broadcasters. Thomson Video Networks builds on this great heritage by providing unique and innovative video delivery solutions for a premium viewing experience. The Thomson Video Networks philosophy, since delivering the world’s first large-scale direct-to-home satellite system, has always been the same — to provide the best possible picture quality across any networks, to any devices. As a worldwide leader in compression systems for satellite, terrestrial, cable, IPTV, mobile TV, and Web streaming, Thomson Video Networks is helping its customers deliver superior quality video to anything from small handheld devices to large 3D high-definition screens, with the lowest bandwidth to ensure a profitable business model. A trusted supplier with more than 20 percent of the active channels deployed worldwide, a global support presence, and culture of delivering quality at every stage, Thomson Video Networks boasts the experience and range of products to supply every need, from hybrid multiformat compression systems to contribution links for content exchange networks. For information about products from Thomson Video Networks, please visit www.thomson-networks.com.
