UK Broadcasters And Regulator Confirm Output With Ideas Unlimited.tv

Two of the UK's largest independent playout centres, responsible for transmitting major national and international channels, and a regulatory body have installed compliance recording and content processing systems from Ideas Unlimited.tv.
One has recently taken on the playout for a leading national brand, which with regional variations, digital and time delay channels corresponds to about 30 individual services. All are recorded for compliance and searching using the Ideas Unlimited.tv Content Probe system.
Content Probe captures a complete channel output securely onto an integral disk. Versions are available which store 24-hour a day content for three months or six months. Using the Ideas Unlimited.tv desktop tool the recording can be searched by date and time to confirm what was transmitted.
Content Probe has also been installed by a UK broadcast regulator, which is currently using it to capture and store off air recordings of 12 radio and television channels.
Meanwhile, another major playout centre is using a specially customised version of Ideas Unlimited.tv's AdCert product to verify the output of a number of channels.
Because the channels are news-based, sometimes it is necessary to make late changes to the planned running order, or take manual control of the output to cover a breaking story. Under these circumstances the as-run log generated by the playout automation may not show what was actually transmitted.
The Ideas Unlimited.tv system stores proxy versions of content to be verified - commercials, in this case - and recognises it when transmitted. In the case of late of unplanned changes, the system identifies which commercials have not been transmitted and annotates the as-run log. Using this system, the broadcaster can provide certified invoices to its advertisers.
Glyn Powell-Evans, Director of Ideas Unlimited.tv, explained: "Everyone needs to know what their channels have actually broadcast, not just to meet compliance regulations but to track back to see what commercials and other content was transmitted and when.
"What we do is provide simple, cost-effective but extremely reliable tools to do this, whether in automated verification or in recording, searching and archiving. These three applications are typical of many which rely on our proven products," he concluded.
(KMcA/BMcC)