Aveco Announces New Products and Solutions for IBC 2011

Aug. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- Prague— Aveco®, the worldwide broadcast facility content management and automation solutions specialist, goes into IBC 2011 this year with a newly redesigned ASTRA Studio II for complete studio automation, and an enhanced focus on content management. In addition, Aveco will be showing its complete ASTRA Suite of Tools, new corporate branding, and a newly redesigned website to help expand Aveco’s worldwide product offering for file-based workflows to the broadcast market.

New ASTRA Studio 2
Building on customer feedback from the original ASTRA Studio, ASTRA Studio 2 is being introduced at IBC and is currently being installed at a large site in Germany. It builds on the experience developed from the original version which offered a single operator control system for live studio and news production. Studio 2 includes a totally new user interface that can run on Windows, Linux, or Apple systems. It is tightly integrated with a user's NRCS system via MOS to provide editors with a single interface to produce and control a broadcast. It has a new abstraction layer called “Shots” that combines the story and device control giving the operator freedom of choice when dealing with last second changes or semi-automated newscasts.

New Product Branding – ASTRA Suite of Tools
Aveco has rebranded its extensive collection of applications and solutions for Master Control, News, and Studio automation as the ASTRA Suite of Tools with a focus on Content Management and the new enhanced version of ASTRA Studio. It offers a complete solution for file-based workflows to manage the lifecycle of a clip from ingest to archive and excels in getting the right clip to the right place at the right time for playout of programs, ads, news and live events. It is made up of:
•ASTRA CMS – Database, facility wide media management, proxy generation, desktop/web browser, rules based file movement, repurposing of content
•ASTRA MCR –Master Control automation for frame accurate playout of programs and commercials. Traffic interface for playlist generation.
•ASTRA News – NRCS interface for playout of news and other live events. MOS interface for generation of the rundown.
•ASTRA Ingest – Automates ingest from video feeds, file transfers, VTRs, analog and digital file based cameras and even CART machines. Includes tools for quality assurance, transcoding, metadata generation and can be used to digitize old tape libraries direct to archive
•ASTRA Studio 2 – Newly designed with a new interface and new features to enable the control of existing studio devices by a single operator to maintain a consistent look and feel of programs, newscasts or other periodic programs.

Disaster Recovery Solutions
Aveco’s system architecture is idea for multi-site facilities which include back-up sites or disaster recovery (DR) sites. ASTRA can run at multiple locations and be managed and operated as one cohesive system. For DR sites, databases, file systems, and playlists are continually updated for frame accurate synchronized playout at both locations. Live events, such as breaking news, can be handled and still maintain frame accurate playout. Aveco has just been contracted to provide a large system in Q4 which will provide a DR site solution for five national channels.

NEW Corporate Look & Feel and New Website
As part of the new ASTRA product branding, customers will see a whole new look and feel for the company with a redesigned red, white, and gray booth. This color scheme and design is carried through on all new collateral including new data sheets and technical notes.
The totally redesigned website — www.aveco.com — incorporates the new product branding and a strategic focus on content management.

Aveco will be exhibiting at IBC 2011 in Amsterdam in Hall 3 booth 3.B56, showcasing ASTRA Studio II, Content Management, and Automation Solutions for Broadcast Facilities.

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AVECO s.r.o., based in Prague, Czech Republic and the United States (as AVECO Americas), designs, sells, and supports Broadcast Facility automation worldwide. Based on a powerful content management system, the ASTRA Suite of Tools provides complete solutions for all aspects of file-based and traditional video workflows including solutions for ingest, browse, master control, newsrooms, and studio automation. A variety of architectures are available from small standalone systems to high channel, multi-site operations which are modular and easily expandable. Solutions can be custom configured with only the features needed and various redundancy options provide very cost-effective and reliable systems. ASTRA is the only automation system available that scales from single channel to high channel systems that are built on a Real-Time Operating System which has the ability to hot swap software modules without rebooting.