IBC 2019: Network18 opts for Grass Valley playout
Details
Rebecca Hawkes
| 16 September 2019

Media group Network18 has chosen Grass Valley’s iTX integrated playout platform throughout all its facilities across India.

The company, which counts the News18 Network, Colors, MTV, CNBC-TV18 and CNN News18 among its channels, required a large scale integrated playout system to handle over 25 formats and resolutions natively, from standard definition to 4K ultra HD.

Network18 has now gone live with 36 channels with iTX, with full migration across its pan-Indian operations anticipated by the end of 2020.

"We at Network18 constantly explore and evaluate newer technologies and solutions aligned with our business objective of value leadership. We look towards standardising the technologies across our group and implement cost-effective solutions and workflows to meet the demand for real-time access to news and entertainment, anywhere, on any device, in the fast emerging digital world,” said Rajat Nigam, group chief technology officer, Network18.

“Our system design has always adhered to the fundamental principles of flexibility, reliability and versatility that enables us to easily add more channels, deliver services to online and social platforms or support 4K UHDTV content compatible with today's multi-platform distribution environment.”

Grass Valley's iTX platform provides a multipurpose operator interface with end-to-end workflow tools, such as file and lines ingest, asset management and preview functions.

Farzin Najmi, vice president, broadcast technology and operations, CNBC-TV18 added: "In a rapidly evolving market, tools that are robust, easy to deploy, intuitive and future-ready are essential to staying ahead of the curve.”

Somu Patil, vice president of sales, APAC, Grass Valley said: “Broadcasters increasingly have to address a wide range of digital OTT platforms in addition to traditional linear services. Our iTX solution is a workhorse for large-scale integrated playout, encompassing file/live IP/SDI playout, captioning/subtitling, audio processing and graphics branding.”