ISMANING: Content solution provider Plazamedia is building a new, IP-based broadcasting center at its location in Ismaning near Munich and is investing in a freely scalable and future-proof infrastructure with a total data throughput of 6.4 terabits per second.
The new broadcasting center was planned by Plazamedia and will be implemented using the technology of broadcast specialists Nevion from Norway and Lawo from Germany, as well as Sono as the system integrator.
The broadcasting center is scheduled to start operations for the new Bundesliga season 2018/2019.
Spread over two floors, Europe’s most modern broadcasting center will extend in the future. In addition to the main switching room and the actual broadcast processing, there are four large multifunction rooms that can be expanded to seven if required, as well as six smaller multifunctional rooms for which an expansion capacity of up to ten is available. The new broadcast center has 70 incoming and 40 outgoing broadcast lines, which can be flexibly expanded at any time. The central crossbar technology with a video matrix with 500 inputs and outputs as well as an audio matrix with 6,000 inputs and outputs handles the entire signal distribution and signal processing. The new, freely scalable technology replaces the previous 17 crossbars of the old broadcasting center. A digital KVM router allows direct access to all computers, 38 IP-based, freely switchable multiviewers ensure the monitoring of the broadcasting center.
Currently, the three central server rooms and the individual workstations are networked with more than 60 kilometers of fiber optic and copper cables. As a result, all work steps from broadcasting to graphics to setting up any workstation in one of the multifunctional rooms can be handled. Employees only have to choose the task profile they need when they register at the workplace. The set-up times between the productions are reduced to a minimum.
Jens Friedrichs, chairman of Plazamedia: “We have designed our new broadcast center for maximum flexibility and scalability. In the future, we will be able to realize a significantly higher volume of projects based on IP than previously in parallel, even at short notice, and with lower operating costs. From the very beginning, we have focused on close cooperation between our specialists and our industrial partners in our planning and implementation. The result is an exclusive system solution that does not exist in any other broadcasting center.”
