OmniBus Systems And Ascent Media Singapore Team To Power HD Lifestyle Channel

Ascent Media Singapore and OmniBus Systems, the award-winning provider of comprehensive broadcast automation, content management and workflow solutions, has announced that Ascent has chosen OmniBus iTX as the playout platform for Li TV, Asia/Pacific's first HD lifestyle channel.
Li TV - short for Life Inspired - broadcasts 24/7 throughout the region, and is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ascent Media Group is a leading provider of fully integrated, end-to-end services for the global digital media supply chain. Ascent Singapore is Asia's largest broadcast outsource facility and the only one to offer full-function HD playout in the region. In July, the company announced a multimillion dollar, multiyear content and rights management deal with Li TV, providing a complete automated workflow system in a shared network environment. Ascent selected OmniBus' iTX automation and playout platform for its new HD service because of the advantages offered by its modular and scalable architecture.
Aaron Shaw, Vice President of Technology and Engineering at Ascent Media Singapore, said: "The modularity of the iTX infrastructure allows us to offer a basic HD service, then to scale the system quickly and easily so it grows as our clients grow. With iTX running on standard HP hardware and software modules adding the additional functions we needed, such as animated logos, subtitling support and Dolby audio, we were able to minimise our time to market and meet Li TV's aggressive launch schedule."
The ability of the iTX platform to evolve in line with client requirements and the in-country support from both HP and OmniBus were pivotal to Ascent Media's decision.
Wee Way Klat, Managing Director of Ascent Media Singapore, said: "iTX is an enabling technology that offers us the fastest time to air and maximum flexibility for our customers. We can now launch HD services at a very aggressive price, making HD the obvious choice even for newcomers such as Li TV. Ascent is proud to continue to lead the market in Asia with the rollout of new HD services."
Fintan McKiernan, OmniBus Systems APAC Sales Manager, said: "iTX is a superb fit for Ascent Media's requirements, allowing them to offer different functionality to individual broadcast customers from a single system. These services are not limited to HD and SD uplinking to satellite - they can easily add new channels for IPTV and mobile TV using the same content, but with differentiated branding and ad insertion. And because iTX uses far less hardware, consumes less power and less air conditioning to playout TV channels, it's also the greenest and most cost-effective broadcasting solution - an advantage that increases as the channel numbers scale up."
With a roster of major-league users including AT&T, DIRECTV, Turner, CNN, ABC and the BBC, iTX is being used to drive large-scale primetime broadcasting services applications that require the ability to integrate into complex environments, provide exchanges of data with the broadcaster's business and traffic systems, and respond instantly to input from a variety of sources. 1,000 channels of iTX are in operation around the world.
(KMcA)