Solution enables integrated workflow and better efficiency across all sports channels

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, today announced the completion of a major broadcast facility upgrade at Ten Sports, part of the Zee Entertainment Group.  Ten Sports’ new broadcast facility, recently relocated from the UAE to India, relies on an end-to-end sports production and playout solution from Imagine Communications and supports the production and distribution of its entire family of channels.

Renowned as the leading sports network in Asia, Ten Sports operates five sports channels across 169 countries and owns the long-term broadcast rights for cricket boards in South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The solution includes the Imagine Communications D-Series™ automated content management and distribution system controlling Nexio® playout servers running Nexio Motion™ and Insight™ software that create automated processes to move and manage media. Ten Sports executes ingest, asset management and playout on a Nexio Farad™ high-performance online storage network with intrinsic mirroring for absolute content security. Imagine Communications also provided the core infrastructure at Ten Sports, including the Nexio IconMaster™ branding and master control switcher.  The industry-leading Platinum™ MX router with integrated Platinum™ SX Pro multiviewer capabilities provides signal routing, distribution and monitoring capabilities, enabling clean and quiet switching for on-air applications in a small physical footprint.

The upgrade has enabled Ten Sports to optimize workflow across the network, from ingest to playout, including all media management, branding and master control. Rich metadata tagging gives Ten Sports the flexibility to retrieve sports content anytime at any stage.

“Our existing IT infrastructure was dated and consisted of independent islands of storage, which lacked fast throughput — slowing the entire ingest to playout process,” said Sanjeev Bhargava, Vice President – Engineering, Ten Sports. “We selected Imagine Communications to enable us to build a more efficient workflow capable of handling the demands of modern day sports production, from ingest through to playout and archive. Furthermore, as our parent company, Zee Entertainment, is also an Imagine Communications’ playout solutions customer, we knew this solution was robust enough to meet our exacting requirements.

“The Nexio IconMaster is a key component of the system and is exclusively used by our sports channels, streamlining the function of fade-in/out during live switching from one event to another — a feature that is extremely important in a sports production environment.”

“There are many factors to consider during any relocation and upgrade,” added Raj Yadav, Regional Sales Manager South Asia at Imagine Communications. “For Ten Sports, this included the ability to work with a single supplier to provide the end-to-end technology and have this underpinned with local support. For a group that has eight sports channels covering regional and international sporting events, keeping the facility on air during the relocation and upgrade process was critical.”

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About Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, futureproof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit https://imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.