South Carolina Education Television Implements Central Casting For 40 Channels With Grass Valley Group

Nevada City, Calif., June 26, 2001 – Broadening its ability to distribute everything from Sesame Street episodes to proceedings of the state legislature, South Carolina Education Television (SCETV), the PBS affiliate network in Columbia, SC has chosen the Grass Valley Group’s Profile® XP Media Platform and Profile Network Archive (PNA) system to help manage and distribute its 40 channels of programming for the state-wide SCETV network from a central location.

As part of SCETV’s Expanding The View™ DTV initiative, an expansive revamping of SCETV’s content distribution system has recently been completed allowing all of SCETV’s affiliates to have channel-specific content central cast from the primary hub facility in Columbia, SC to each region throughout the state. From the central hub facility, SCETV has the ability to manage its more than 40 channels automatically-- giving the station the ability to present digital media over its broadcast, satellite, and cable distribution systems quickly.

“At SCETV our main objective is to broadcast various educational programs and PBS programs across the state simultaneously,” said Jim Blakeslee, assistant vice president, engineering for SCETV. “The Grass Valley Group’s Profile XP Media Platform and PNA system allows us to ingest and store 8000 hours of programming into near line storage and then schedule those programs for playout with automation in a matter of minutes.”

SCETV is an educational programming leader in South Carolina, and in addition to its traditional over the air broadcast and Digital Satellite programming, SCETV’s closed-circuit network brings educational programming to over 1600 public schools, colleges, technical colleges, and universities statewide and over 100 sites around the nation. SCETV offers approximately 700 hours of programming per day of continuing education classes to state agencies, hospitals, and South Carolina businesses while simultaneously providing more hours of quality children’s programs than any other television broadcaster in South Carolina. As a result, SCETV via its Profile XP Media Platform receives, archives and distributes programming 24 hours a day.

“We are seeing a strong move by broadcasters to a central casting model for cost savings and efficiency,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president and CEO of the Grass Valley Group “The Grass Valley Group has designed our products with this model in mind and SCETV is one of the first to take advantage of Profile and PNA in incorporating a central casting model.”

Before moving to a digital solution, SCETV’s playback services were entirely tape based with a mix of 1” (type C), Betacam SP and SVHS VTRs. Managing program delays and tracking media assets for last-minute scheduling changes were difficult. Today, SCETV uses a multi-channel Profile XP Media Platform and Profile Network Archive System, coupled with high-speed DST Data Storage devices and Asset Management software to dynamically track all of its digital broadcast programming.

In addition to its Profile XP Media Platform and Profile Network Archive systems, SCETV relies on the Grass Valley Group’s 8900 Series modular products, audio and video distribution amplifiers, and analog to digital and digital to analog converters within its infrastructure.

ABOUT THE PROFILE XP MEDIA PLATFORM
The Profile line has more broadcast content stored on it and more units installed than any other server. It is also the industry’s most open platform, supporting both the high-quality standards required for broadcast television and low-resolution required for the Internet, as well as MPEG, DVCPRO, HD, and MPEG Transport Streams (MTS) formats.

ABOUT THE PROFILE NETWORK ARCHIVE
The Profile Network Archive is the next generation archive system that allows a network of profile video servers to access a central archive system. Designed for flexibility and high availability, it offers advanced management software and support for popular tape automation systems and libraries allowing the ability to configure with an optimal amount of capacity and performance.

ABOUT THE GRASS VALLEY GROUP
The Grass Valley Group knows more about high-quality video than anybody else-especially as video goes digital. The Internet. Digital cinema. Data-enhanced broadcasting. Interactive television. It’s a world of Digicasting-one that demands Media Without Bounds™ solutions. Whether online or on the air, the Emmy® award-winning Grass Valley Group, a privately held digital media leader, has the hardware, software, and new media technologies to get content wherever it needs to go.

For the latest Grass Valley Group product information visit www.grassvalleygroup.com.