Dolphin, Orca swim towards Pebble Beach for 4K showcase
Details
Michelle Clancy
| 31 January 2017

Pebble Beach Systems is prepping a showcase for 4K playout from the Dolphin integrated channel system and Lighthouse, a Web-based remote management and monitoring tool for the Marina automation system.

Dolphin offers automated integrated audio, video and graphics functionality for ingest, channel branding and frame-accurate multichannel playout, and claims to be able to bridge the SDI and IP worlds. It can work in either compressed or uncompressed environments being SMPTE2022-6/7 compliant. With new added I/O support for either IP or SDI, Dolphin helps organisations evolve their playout from HD to 4K when required, without a forklift upgrade. 4K output is presented as H.264/H.265 SPTS (single program transport stream) over IP or Quad SDI. For input, 4K file-based media can be encoded with H.264, ProRes, XAVC, or AVC-Ultra. The Dolphin system supports automatic SD/HD up-conversion to 4K when mixed content is present.

Lighthouse is a Web-based remote management and monitoring dashboard for the Marina automation environment that extends Marina’s functionality to business users, operational staff and engineers both inside and outside the broadcast facility. It offers control, monitoring, media management and system configuration tools via an array of widgets on configurable web-based dashboards, with the ability to aggregate data across multiple sites. Lighthouse extends the reach of staff with standard browser interfaces for status and corrective actions.

Lighthouse also offers a series of interfaces which deliver configuration and deployment functionality for Orca virtual channels. Using revamped design and deployment tools, Lighthouse users can design, edit, launch and decommission virtual IP channels on the fly.

The company says that it will offer a live deployment and hosting of multiple channels either in a private cloud or with Amazon Web Services (AWS), using Orca, Pebble's virtualised playout solution running under the Marina automation control system.

Pebble's public cloud solution is aimed at pop-up, event-based channels and disaster recovery applications. With Orca, centralcast hubs, service providers, sports broadcasters and corporates can create new IP channels from a series of templates, to deploy them quickly into a running system without having to restart or make configuration changes. Fully automated channels, using the same Marina infrastructure as on-premises systems, can also be launched.