Euronews Romania is the latest project carried out by UPB, an external company that operates on the style of franchising, derived from the Polytechnic of the University of Bucharest, therefore in the legal form of a state body.
The idea completed a few months ago was the independent replication of the business model already operational and successful in other countries, namely the 24-hour news and sports only channel.
The pool made up of MediaPower Italy in partnership with the distributor in Romania, Blitz Technology and the sister company AVPro, of which MediaPower is also a partner, won the tender for the supply of the newsroom dedicated to this project, the new Euronews Romania news and sports only channel.
The project started last year after the signing of the contract, dated August 2021, which MediaPower was awarded thanks to its many years of experience in the management of newsrooms and in the wake of a long series of successes on the subject, having first brought the brand and Dalet’s leading technologies in Italy in 2010.
Also in Euronews Romania a Dalet architecture was proposed almost in a mirror image of what happened at the Euronews parent company in Lyon, which, in fact, has already been using Dalet for years.
NetApp solution
The plant proposed by MediaPower is an integrated system that derives from an engineering process carried out together with the Italian branch of Dalet.
The solution consists of an infrastructure entirely based on HP as a server and Aruba as a networking.
The primary storage system that broadcasts the entire news channel is NetApp, basically replicating an architecture and a system already run in with other customers, such as TV2000 and Supertennis.
The technological solution is created around a Dalet newsroom system precisely because it is considered a reference in this area, since it allows organizations to acquire, manage and archive digital media.
Dalet, through MediaPower in Italy, offers completely digital solutions that significantly improve productivity through the immediate access and management of precious multimedia resources.
Euronews Romania’s workflow is therefore entirely Dalet, from content ingest to asset creation and broadcasting.
The channel operates on a multi-platform, digital terrestrial and streaming and arouses great interest on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
System overview
When asked to describe the system installed in general, Octavian Diac, Chief Technology Officer of Euronews Romania, replies:
“In general we have chosen most of the components considered standard of the typical Dalet newsroom, starting from the management of the planning, of the rundown, and all the scripting part.
The content browsing and cataloging section is an integral part of the system, therefore a powerful MAM for content management.
The whole “backend structure” is based on HP servers and was initially structured for the work of about 60 journalists (of which 30 for logging and pre-production and 30 qualified for advanced editing); but just a few days after the official launch of the channel, which took place at the end of May 2022, we had already requested to extend the number of licenses to 100.
This almost immediate extension of the project obviously also involved an expansion of the necessary hardware resources”.
“The system takes care of everything, including ingesting and managing the assets and we took care of the engineering, construction, consolidation, the entire “turnkey” procedure, ie from the initial concept to delivery complete with the finished technology newsroom solution.
Our partner AudioVideoPro took care of all the part relating to the realization of the studios, managed the broadcast equipment, the cameras, the editing section, and the journalists’ workstations”.
“An interesting part of this Euronews Romania system is the interfacing with Ross equipment, sold in Romania by Bitz technology, which took care of the Playout and station graphics, created via MOS also with teleprompters.
The MOS, Media Object Server protocol allowed interfacing and communications, including the playlist information, with the NCS system, newsroom computer system, using a standard protocol. So all the production of the equipment is seen as a single system in the broadcast production workflow, including video servers, audio servers, still stores, and graphic character generators”.
“This is a great system that involves several brands: in addition to Ross Ultrix video routers, we used Dalet Brio video servers, Panasonic P2 cameras and all storage is from Netapp and various plugins.
For the non-linear editing section, Adobe Premiere was chosen with Dalet Extend plug-ins that manage browsing, import, and export of functionality.
Extensions useful for the publication on social media of clips exported to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have been integrated within the Dalet platform.
Among the various components to complete the system, in addition to the “standard” Dalet ones, some other interesting ones are the licenses for Dalet Webspace which allows you to work externally multimedia content, in particular by people who work remotely, such as journalists in the field.
Through an exclusive browsing function, the external editor can connect to the network and can see the rundowns, the contents, can easily assemble a service, without using a physical client connected to the network: a simple web browser is enough”.
The all news system also includes some licenses of Dalet on-the-go, the mobile platform which, through an infrastructure server located in Euronews Romania, allows you to manage a reduced – but fully functional – version on a mobile device, a smartphone or a tablet.
This also allows you to read the teleprompter script, help send stories and read all assignments in a seamless collaborative workflow.
All graphics are Dalet CubeNG, a complete suite of tools that allows you to design, manage and reproduce high quality 3D graphics.
Originated in SDI, it is exported directly to the broadcast.
The transcoding farm section is Dalet AmberFin iCR (intelligent Content Re-Purposing), scalable, agile and efficient: an intelligent platform for content repositioning capable of managing large volumes of high quality files, thanks to an exclusive “slim -file”.
The system is – obviously – redundant and based on a main solution and a backup. So it is able to stay on the air even in the remote case of main system problems.
Last but not least is the high-level Netapp FAS 8300A Architecture-based storage with usable capacity of 197 TB on a gross capacity of 260 TB.
The machine is equipped with all the most interesting features with 25 and 40 GB ports, therefore with excellent bandwidth.
It is configured with 6 chassis each with 24 1.8TB SAS disks for a 150 thousand IOT system capable of managing 4.4.4.7 GB / sec of bandwidth, with interesting reserve and in only 16 rack units.
“The file format chosen by Euronews Romania is XAVCHD-L 108050p / LGOP 4: 2: 2 50 Mbps which is used throughout the chain, while a single low resolution format (MP4 720p / 3Mbps) handles the preview.
The low-resolution format is still good enough for quick posting to websites without additional transcoding.
Journalists work on a unified interface from acquisition to playout.
All content is stored on a single storage system based on the renowned NetApp FAS product line. The usable capacity of 197 TB is sufficient for over 6,000 hours of content.
The main network equipment resides in a pair of Aruba 5406R modular switches in vsf configuration (virtual switch framework); 2 x 48 Aruba 2930F ports mainly connect client devices and studio and editorial clients.
The network is also connected via 10GB ports for internet access to the 2 main internet lines also using a redundant configuration with a pair of Mikrotik routers and managed switches.
The Dalet System: Dalet Galaxy 5 MAM and NRCS.
The playout: 4-channel Dalet Brio server.
Graphics: 3 Dalet CubeNG graphics engines (2 for lower thirds, titles, position, boxes, etc and 1 for video wall or full screen graphics)
Dalet also for the 4-channel acquisition system.
Dalet OneCut for editing
Dalet Xtend for integration with Adobe Premier
The transcoding system is from AmberFin.
Direction and studio: 2 Ross Carbonite Ultra video switches (1 is used for 16: 9 and the second is used for 9:16)
1 Calrec Summa audio mixer with 32 faders
The intercom system is based on Telos Infinity IP with 10 panels, 4 beltpacks, 2 telephone systems with 8 hybrids.
The prompt system is Cuescript.
1 Vmix computer is used for vmix calls, zoom, skype, facetime, etc. via NDI
5 Panasonic HE-UE150 PTZ cameras with Panasonic AW-RP150G remote control and 1 Panasonic CX350 camera operate on a Steadicam system in the Studio.
Sennheiser microphones and lavaliers work in the studio.
The Matrix is Ross Ultrix 160×160.
Glue equipment is by Ross (distribuzioni, embedder, deembedder, cross conversion, etc.). Ross MC1 Master Control panel.
In the Studio, the automation is Ross Overdrive with Dalet NRCS automation control, Ross Carbonite Ultra switcher, Calrec Summa audio mixer, Dalet OnAir playback, Dalet CubeNG graphics, Cuescript prompter, RGBLink Venus X2 video wall processor, PTZ cam and Zero88 lighting console
The traffic system is VSN Crea
The main / backup MCR playback system is based on the playback solution of the Spanish company VSN called VSN One TV.
There are two advanced audio volume processors, Telos Alliance ARC 100 in accordance with ITU R128 recommendation
For field transmission we use 6 sets of ENG cameras (Sony Z280) / 10 MoJo kits (mobile journalists kit) / 6 LiveUencoders: 3 x LiveU LU 600 and 3 x LiveU LU 300 and on location we have two LiveU LU reception servers 2000.
For distribution to cable companies and web platforms we have Ateme Titan Live encoders”.
Marcello Dellepiane concludes:
“MediaPower has woven all the threads of this complex weave system – including project management, tender and delivery – with a dedicated team made up of project managers Paolo Birra, Andrea Amodio, and Dalet’s engineers. All the training is our work, thanks to Stefano Bogani who trained the super users, but also the user administrators, supervisor journalists and technicians; then we trained the trainers of Euronews Romania and completed the evangelization of high-level employees who then had to transfer the skills and knowledge to the journalists of the newsroom team.
We were hindered by an endless evening of vicissitudes: from the urgency to complete the project, from the covid, from the scarcity of hardware components, from the site that was physically not ready, from a late start of deliveries of products, in October and November, for go on air in May. But we are equipped for miracles and in May Euronews Romania was on the air”.
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