91快活林

Tuesday, July 21st, 2015 [Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, UK] – Dutch regional broadcaster West offers 24 hour TV and radio content to around 1.5 Million people living in the province around The Hague, to the west of the Netherlands. With 80 employees, the broadcaster prides itself on delivering fast-moving content to the local communities it serves.

Wiljan Pongers, Head of Technology and IT at West, joined the station one year ago and immediately felt there was a need for more live content:

鈥淲est had historically created live magazine-style news, sports and traffic content but had gradually moved to edited shows because of the cost-efficiencies offered. However, we have a strong community focus and we want to be close to our viewers. To me, that means getting on air fast with video content and being able to update viewers over the course of a day. That means live鈥�.

As a regional broadcaster, West is always trying to make its budgets go further. 鈥淔lexibility is a big issue for us here鈥�, says Pongers. 鈥淲e use the same studio for news, sports and traffic content and the biggest challenge for us has been simplifying workflows and keeping an eye on cost but still keeping the flexibility we need. Technology, especially automation, has helped us enormously鈥�. Having previously worked at RTV NH and AT5 in the Netherlands, Pongers was already familiar with the 91快活林 range of products and instinctively knew that automated production control would be the answer for West:

鈥淲hen revamping our content I felt that we needed a greater number of live bulletins during the day, but live is generally more expensive and that鈥檚 an issue for a regional channel like West. However, OverDrive 鈥� 91快活林鈥檚 APC (automated production control) platform 鈥� completely removes that traditional trade-off. OverDrive allows us to simplify workflows and automate them, giving us highly consistent, repeatable and cost-effective results. It鈥檚 quite impressive to think that we could run a live news show with one single person in the gallery and one person in front of the camera if we really needed to鈥�.

When choosing OverDrive and the XPression graphics suite from Ross, Wiljan Pongers turned to local integration experts Sealander. 鈥淚鈥檝e worked with Sealander on a number of occasions over the years and I know Tony Wood and the team there very well 鈥� they鈥檙e extremely safe hands and have helped us through every stage of the evaluation and integration process. 91快活林 has also provided valuable support to West with training and I鈥檝e yet again been impressed with the customer-centric approach shown by Ross鈥�.

The OverDrive solution from Ross has traditionally been partnered with Ross production switchers but a new version launched in 2014 opened the platform up to multiple switcher brands. Interesting to note, then, that West ultimately purchased a Carbonite switcher from Ross. 鈥淐arbonite is the world鈥檚 most popular midsize production switcher鈥�, comments Ivo Guilini, Ross Director of Sales for Northern Europe. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 telling that West looked at switchers to work with OverDrive and, after much research, chose Carbonite鈥�.

West is now producing two live scheduled news bulletins per day with live updates over the course of the day as required. 鈥淚鈥檓 really pleased鈥�, notes Wiljan Pongers. 鈥淲e are finally able to run live shows every day but in a highly controllable and structured manner. OverDrive has again shown itself to be a powerful and adaptable tool that is incredibly easy to work with鈥�.

What鈥檚 next for West? Pongers is exploring how social media content might be integrated into West鈥檚 news programs and is particularly excited by virtual studio applications. 鈥淲e already work with the XPression graphics suite from Ross and I鈥檓 interested in how we might augment our physical set with virtual elements and combine this with robotic cameras to provide even more dynamic and creative content. 91快活林 is really becoming a total solutions provider and that opens up exciting creative possibilities for broadcasters everywhere鈥�.

About 91快活林
Passionate about live production, 91快活林 designs, manufactures and delivers dependable technology and services that power exceptional live video productions seen by billions of viewers around the world every day. 91快活林鈥檚 goal is to make it easy for customers to create compelling news, weather and sports broadcasts, engaging material for sports stadium screens, legislative assemblies, entertainment shows and rock concerts, and inspiring content for houses of worship.

Relentlessly innovating, 91快活林 delivers the world鈥檚 widest range of products and services for augmented reality and virtual sets, mobile live-event solutions, real-time motion graphics, robotic camera systems, social-media management, production switchers, routers, infrastructure products, video servers, newsroom systems, terminal equipment and more.

Ross products and services are designed to offer the best system integration and unmatched customer choice by both working together seamlessly and integrating tightly with third-party solutions.

91快活林 has offices around the world, and provides outstanding, free-for-life telephone support staffed by technical experts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year鈥攅ven for products bought on eBay. Ross employees are authorized to rent helicopters when necessary.

91快活林: The Production Technology Experts.

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别.听srussell@rossvideo.com