Working with strong partners such as Grass Valley®, Oracle® (Front Porch Digital®), Aveco® and Octopus®, BCE was in charge of the integration of a newsroom, post-production editing rooms, a broadcast platform with master control for EBC as well as the digitisation of their archives.
“Following our strategy to offer our services to the MENA market, BCE has committed to installing state-of-the-art platforms to media customers using its expertise and its trusted supplier’s network. This major evolution of their infrastructure will drive the company to a leading position on the Ethiopian media market”, comments Frédéric Fievez, Manager Special Projects at BCE.
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From digitisation to a new tapeless HD infrastructure
As holders of the legacy archives of Ethiopia’s public broadcasting, EBC needed to digitise their content in order to preserve it and to make it accessible for new programmes.
As part of this preservation process, EBC also needed a new postproduction platform to edit this content and prepare it for content repurposing and other productions.
After a call for tender, BCE, in partnership with Grass Valley®, was selected for the integration of this infrastructure. BCE, thanks to its strong experience in mass content digitisation for important European media players as well as international content producers and TV channels, was able to answer rapidly to their demand. BCE’s experts were able to install the platform and also train EBC staff to work in this new environment.
Following the first preview of BCE’s work steps, the EBC presented to BCE a more complete and more complex infrastructure to be installed. EBC needed to follow European standards in terms of video quality and digital content management.
With the strong support of Grass Valley®, Oracle® (Front Porch Digital®), Aveco® and Octopus®, BCE updated the complete workflow of the public Broadcaster, including the ingest platform, the news production, the postproduction editing suites, the multi-playout infrastructure and a disaster recovery platform for ingest, the edition and the production and broadcast archive.
“Working with EBC demonstrates BCE’s capacity to adapt to any market. It’s a real step forward for the broadcasting market in Africa and a strong evolution for our customer,” comments Jean Lampach, CTDO of BCE.
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Three steps to ensure a seamless launch
“Having the complete customer infrastructure was a fantastic way to reduce the time between each step of the project. Our engineers were immediately available to configure and update the systems, and our technology experts were able to give the right information to EBC’s team present in Luxembourg with direct interaction with their system,” comments Sven Weisen, Manager Special Projects at BCE.
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Taking its first major step in Africa, BCE needed to ensure the perfect installation for its customer. To do so, BCE changed its classical way of working with integration.
Taking advantage of its strong infrastructure in Luxembourg, with extended room for projects, BCE decided to install the complete platform of the customer in Luxembourg in order to prepare it for the local team.
Being able to work directly in Luxembourg is a big advantage to ensure immediate availability of material, drastically reduce the costs and accelerate the integration. With the complete solution installed in Luxembourg, BCE’s engineers were able to ensure it was working properly and prepare it for EBC’s building with all the pre-cabling done.
“It’s exciting for us to collaborate with EBC because it marks the first time GV STRATUS is being used in a broadcast newsroom setting in Africa,” said Said Bacho, Senior Vice President, EMEA, Grass Valley. “Africa is a vibrant and growing market, and we are committed to providing broadcasters there with the most sophisticated gear for professional use today. As our solutions are both flexible and scalable, they allow EBC to invest in technology for the future while also maximising cost efficiencies and streamlining workflow.”
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During this first integration in Luxembourg, EBC’s team came to Luxembourg to be trained directly on their new platform. The dual status of BCE as both broadcaster and integrator was a real advantage for EBC as they could benefit from high quality training sessions from our top broadcast executives, ensuring the best transfer of knowledge for the continuity of their work. Since their platform was fully built in BCE’s premises, the team has been trained to use their new tools, avoiding the need for any time to adapt to the future installation in Africa.
Meanwhile a large volume of EBC legacy content was digitised by BCE. This was to accelerate the launch of the channel with ready-to-broadcast content already available in the customer’s digital library.
The platform was then moved to Ethiopia where BCE’s experts teamed up with the local architects and EBC’s team to reassemble the parts of the pre-configured platform. The local team finished their training on site as well with BCE experts.
“In collaboration with Grass Valley, BCE took its first major step in Africa. Thanks to an off-site pre-installation in Luxembourg, our team succeeded in seamlessly delivering, in a cost-effective way, a high-achieving platform to EBC.” commented Frédéric Lemaire, CEO of BCE.
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Less than a year after the beginning of the work, the new platform was ready. To ensure a seamless start, BCE provided assistance during the launch and the first weeks of operations. BCE will also provide remote assistance all year through its Network Operations Centre based in Luxembourg, available 24/7.
“The work of BCE exceeded all EBC’s expectations” commented EBC.
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Editing room at EBC
Editing room at EBC
Control room at EBC
Technical room at EBC
Practical training
Training sessions
EBC team in Luxembourg
Provisory platform at BCE
