Tag Archive for: OASYS Integrated Playout

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Do Values Matter for Broadcast Solution Providers?

As a broadcast engineer, you focus on solving technical and operational problems. However, the reality is you probably spend a great deal of time talking with sales people and researching equipment.

Features, Benefits or Values

Most interactions are feature and benefit discussions followed by a transactional exchange of currency for products, solutions or services. I’m sure being on the receiving side of a constant barrage of feature-speak and buzz words can make you a bit jaded. Deep down, you want products and solutions that solve your problems, are reliable so you never worry about them and, if a problem pops up is supported by a company you can trust. What’s important to you is a level of understanding about the company behind the products and services. Of course, you are interested in some of the features and benefits because you don’t want to make a mistake. You want a valuable relationship with a Company you can trust and work with for many years, and this ranks much higher than a few features you may never use.

How do you discover the soul of the companies you work with? Simple, ask what their values are? Do they even know? Knowing their values describes who’s behind the company and why do they do what they do?

We think values speak louder than features and benefits. A company’s values speak to their mindset, mission and culture. In an industry where most competitors offer similar solutions, core values help separate one company from another and provide clues to help you understand what to expect after the sale.

BroadStream’s Core Values

As an organization, BroadStream strongly believes our culture and values play a key role in our success and how customers view us. We live by three core values: Integrity, Respect and Be Your Best.

Integrity, Respect and Be Your Best are our Values

  • Integrity is about being transparent, honest and consistent.
  • Respect for each other, our co-workers, customers and vendors.
  • Be Your Best is always making an effort to do your best every day. This does not mean be “perfect”, because no one is perfect. It simply means striving to do our best everyday.

These core values guide our decision-making and day-to-day operations. We have a “no-blame” culture to ensure that everyone in the organization has a voice at the table and contributes to the discussion while feeling safe and valued. This same “no-blame” culture extends to Support as well. Often, when problems pop-up, there are several companies involved. At BroadStream we don’t point fingers but rather focus on finding a solution to the problem, whether it’s ours or not.

BroadStream’s Operational Guidance

Operationally, we follow the Lean Six Sigma principles of continuous improvement and work to improve every facet of our organization and operations. Every process and every department is evaluated periodically to ensure we are operating as efficiently as possible and that we regularly implement new processes to reduce waste and improve our internal workflows.

Reliability is Most Important

Our products and solutions are designed to provide the functionality you need but with a high degree of reliability including multiple redundancy options along with service and support to keep your system running smoothly and with minimal effort.

Others Value Values as Well

We’re not the only one’s that think core values matter. Check out these articles for more insight: Values Matter: Understanding Why Core Values are Important and What are Company Values and Why They are Important.

In a world where all of the providers deliver most of the same features, benefits and operational functionality, look beyond the shiny, new objects and dig deep to learn about the core of your future business partners. Want to learn more? Click here to reach out to us.

 

 

 

WVIA Large Logo

WVIA Selects VoCaption-Live for Real-Time Automated Captioning

VoCaption 1RU Hardware

 

Integrated playout and captioning specialist, BroadStream Solutions, is pleased to announce that PBS station WVIA in Pittston, PA went live recently with BroadStream’s VoCaption Live solution for live automated captioning.

WVIA operates 3 channels including PBS, Create and Kids, successfully serving Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Central Susquehanna Valley area. Broadcasting since 1966, WVIA has a long history of service to the community and surrounding area with local programming, educational programming, outreach and services.

WVIA selected BroadStream’s OASYS Integrated Playout and Graphics solution back in 2018 and OASYS automates the playout of their three channels that include PBS, Create and Kids. Adding VoCaption provides the station with an automated solution to generate real-time captions for live shows and emergencies.

VoCaption is a cost-effective solution that uses ASR or Automated Speech Recognition to provide real-time captions at a fraction of the cost of human captioners.

Speech-to-text technology used for ASR has improved dramatically over the last few years and delivers accuracy comparable to a live human captioner depending on audio quality. With the decline of available professional captioners and corresponding improvements in automated speech recognition, broadcasters can confidently leverage this technology to deliver captions that are accurate, professional and provide much needed cost-savings.

With VoCaption Live, broadcasters get:

  • Automatic conversion of audio to text in real time.
  • Custom vocabulary tools to enhance localization and improve accuracy.
  • Available 24/7 for emergencies, breaking news or whenever needed.
  • Significant cost savings versus live human captioning.
  • Improved and streamlined workflows.

VoCaption Simple Workflow

 

You can reach us on our website to learn more about VoCaption Live and how it will save you money while delivering highly accurate live captions.

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KRSU Launches OASYS Playout Virtually During Pandemic

Duluth, GA, USA – September 1, 2020: Leading integrated playout and subtitling specialist, BroadStream Solutions, is pleased to announce that Public Television Station KRSU, Claremore, OK went live recently with BroadStream’s OASYS Integrated Playout as their new broadcast automation solution.

“KRSU is the only full-powered public television station licensed to a public university in Oklahoma and serves over 1.2 million people in northeastern Oklahoma and the Tulsa metropolitan area, according to Royal Aills, General Manager. We are a recognized leader in providing distance learning opportunities for students, in addition to producing educational telecourses and live interactive college and high school courses, special interest local programming, children’s programming and documentary features.”

KRSU’s OASYS Integrated Playout system is a 1+1 HD Playout with Redundancy Manager on the Main channel and a 1+1 SD Playout system with Redundancy Manager on a secondary channel. Both the Main and Secondary channels include Extended Graphics capability. Ingest is via 2 HD BroadStream Maker ingest channels and a 32TB NAS with Indexing Services. OASYS is also integrated with Myers Protrack BXF Traffic system and Media Asset Management solution using CUC Solutions Archival System.

“Our timing for this project was, unfortunately, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic”, according to Kevin Shoemaker, Chief Engineer at KRSU. However, the BroadStream Team was ready and able to make up for the lack of on-premise work and skillfully provided excellent virtual commissioning and training to our staff. Having the OASYS system up and running gives us so many more features, flexibility and workflow improvements than our previous automation system, and this will help us operate much more efficiently. We know, moving forward, that if necessary our OASYS system and staff can perform all necessary functions remotely and our ability to broadcast will never be in jeopardy. The change from traditional Master Control to the OASYS Integrated Playout system is a huge step ahead for us.”

“We are very excited to have KRSU as part of the BroadStream Family,” said David Bowes, President and CEO of BroadStream. “Kevin Shoemaker and his team have been great to work with considering the added stress COVID-19 caused during their commissioning and training. We are very proud of the way our team stepped up and stuck to the timetable, despite the lock-down. We value our relationship with them and the entire Public Television community and look forward to supporting KRSU for many years in the future.”

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About KRSU-TV PBS

KRSU-TV Public Television (http://rsu.tv) station is part of Rogers State University and governed by the OU Board of Regents. RSU Public TV provides educational, cultural and general interest programming to an audience of 1.2 million viewers in northeastern Oklahoma, and the Tulsa metropolitan area. RSU is recognized as a national leader in providing distance learning opportunities for students, and RSU Public TV’s production expertise has been a key component in this endeavor. In addition to producing educational telecourses and live interactive college and high school concurrent courses, RSU Public TV also produces special interest local programming, children’s programs and documentary features. RSU Public TV is operated by a full-time professional staff. The station also serves as an instructional facility for RSU broadcasting students interested in rewarding careers in the television industry. Students perform numerous functions in the station’s day-to-day operations.

About BroadStream Solutions

BroadStream (https://broadstreamsol.wpengine.com) specializes in flexible and highly scalable solutions for integrated playout, live automated captioning & subtitling, file-based, captioning & subtitling, caption encoding and subtitling software tools. Our OASYS Integrated Playout solution is used world-wide by broadcasters of all sizes for Content Preparation, Playout and Management. Designed to improve workflow efficiency, solutions are available in SD, HD, and IP as well as SD/HD-SDI and SDI/IP hybrid playout configurations to provide a solid migration path to future technologies, including the cloud, to make transitioning easier.

In 2018, BroadStream acquired Screen Subtitling Systems in the UK. Screen specializes in products for the preparation and delivery of captions, subtitles and value-add information services across multiple platforms and devices. Our combined 60+ years of hands-on experience consistently delivers quality, flexibility, dependability, improved workflows and operational efficiency that scale from single channel facility to multichannel broadcasters and service providers operating hundreds of channels.