Blackmagic Design has announced that Japan’s TBS television broadcast station has built a news streaming workflow with Blackmagic’s ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K, ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4Ks and ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panels. This new facility is used for streaming daily news as well to provide extensive streaming news content covering Japan’s upcoming election campaign.
TBS, one of Japan’s top commercial broadcasters, has grown their streaming programming as the demand for providing up to the minute news to non TV devices like smartphones and computers, has grown. The channel now includes a YouTube channel for breaking news, a 24 hours news streaming channel for satellite broadcast and news streaming for social media such as twitter and Facebook. All of these will include content created with the Blackmagic Design ATEM switchers, which were installed at TBS’s main Tokyo locations.
Content Business Department, said: “We updated our streaming facility as part of a huge layout change for our news floor. When choosing the equipment for the new workflow, we decided to use switchers that could also be used for the upcoming election campaign special program, which happens once every few years. This is different from the past, where we used to build a temporal facility for only the special program. But it was very tiring to set up all the gear from scratch each time. So, we took this opportunity to upgrade our streaming equipment to be more versatile and permanent so that we could use it for the election campaign program.”
Hayato Aoyama, who handles the everyday streaming operation at TBS TV, added: “We used to use just the Blackmagic’s ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K for our 24 hours news streaming program, but we needed more inputs and outputs to handle all of the new streaming content we were planning. So we then added the larger Blackmagic switchers, including the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K and ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panels, and another ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K that we used just for our social media channels.”
Each ATEM switcher receives pictures from television relay, VTRs and subtitles. Taking advantage of the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K’s 20 inputs, TBS sends camera feeds to the switcher while using additional inputs for subtitles. Each ATEM switcher is also connected to an ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel via LAN for more intuitive operation.
Tallies which are used for two VTR inputs with the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K and one VTR input for the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K. Audio from camera feeds on the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K are sent to an audio mixer via Blackmagic’s Mini Converter SDI to Audio. Then all video and audio are sent to a matrix router and each program is streamed via an encoder.
Aoyama continued “We only used one ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K before, but sometimes we needed more inputs, so as a workaround, we just simply switched the input cables. Now, we use the 2 M/E for our 24 hours news channel, which allows us a seamless workflow and a large amount of inputs for subtitles, which we prepare beforehand to easily switch them on air.
“The ATEM 2 M/E has many more inputs and keyers compared to other manufacturer’s switcher, and its cost effectiveness is outstanding,” Yamamoto added.
“The ATEM switchers are intuitive and so easy to operate. When breaking news comes and everything gets so hectic, we get nervous about making operational mistakes using a mouse and computer monitor. Having a physical controller gives me a more secured feeling and speeds up my operation,” Aoyama concluded.
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Japan’s TBS TV Builds News Streaming Workflow with ATEM Switchers
