We are kindly inviting you to join us at IBC 2024, Stand #1.C11.

We are delighted to share a teaser video showcasing the cutting-edge features and sleek new user interface of the latest Stream Circle playout system. From advanced live feed control and automated server handling to the all-new customizable GUI with light and dark modes, this update is designed to revolutionize how broadcasters manage content and enhance operational efficiency.

Don’t miss out on seeing these innovations in person! Join us at IBC 2024, Stand #1.C11, to experience the future of playout automation.

We can’t wait to show you how Stream Circle can take your broadcasting operations to the next level.

Stream Circle is excited to announce our presence at IBC 2024, booth #1.C11, where we will be unveiling our completely redesigned user interface, now offering both light and dark mode options. This new UI is not only visually stunning but also tailored to enhance user experience, providing a more intuitive, customizable, and efficient workflow for broadcasters. Whether you prefer the crisp clarity of light mode or the sleek, modern feel of dark mode, Stream Circle’s new interface adapts to your needs, making content management and playout operations smoother than ever. Join us at IBC 2024 to experience this innovation firsthand and see how it can revolutionize your broadcasting workflow.

We’re thrilled to introduce the new playout monitoring and control screen, designed to enhance your broadcasting operations with two distinct modes tailored to your needs. The Live Show Mode is engineered to assist operators in real-time, offering precise control over all live feeds and transitions, ensuring a seamless broadcast experience during live events. Meanwhile, the Playlist Mode provides a streamlined interface for managing playlist-defined operations, allowing for smooth control and easy editing of playlists, ensuring that every broadcast runs according to plan. This dual-mode functionality empowers operators to switch effortlessly between live and scheduled content, enhancing flexibility and operational efficiency.

We are also introducing the new Caster Grid functional extension, a powerful tool designed to seamlessly integrate with the Stream Circle ecosystem. Caster Grid offers advanced capabilities to transcode and record any feed, ensuring smooth and efficient content flow within your broadcast operations. Beyond transcoding and recording, Caster Grid also excels in managing watch dog triggered file operations, such as moves, copies, and additional transcoding tasks. This versatile extension enhances your workflow by automating critical file management processes, allowing for greater operational efficiency and reliability. Whether you’re handling live streams or pre-recorded content, Caster Grid ensures your media is always in the right format and location, ready for flawless broadcasting.

Visit Stream Circle on IBC 2024 #1.C11

In the dynamic world of broadcasting, delivering captivating and information-rich content is essential. With the integration of Tweenly’s HTML-based graphics editor into the Stream Circle playout solution, broadcasters can now unlock unprecedented creative power and operational efficiency. The seamless connection between Tweenly and Stream Circle allows for effortless editing within the user-friendly Tweenly editor, with automated uploads directly to the Stream Circle repository. This integration enables broadcasters to easily manage parametrized graphics for logos, secondary events, and announcements, while also simplifying the preparation of external data sources for data-driven TV graphics. Together, Tweenly and Stream Circle empower broadcasters to create and deploy stunning, dynamic visuals with ease, transforming the way content is delivered to audiences.

We’re excited to share a glimpse into the power of Tweenly’s HTML-based graphics with two compelling examples:

1. Animated TV Station Logos: See how Tweenly brings your brand to life with dynamic, animated logos that capture attention and reinforce your station’s identity with every broadcast.
2. Parametrized Announcements for Secondary Graphics: Discover how easy it is to create and automate announcements for “Now Showing,” “Priorities of the Week,” and “Next Coming Shows.” With Tweenly, you can effortlessly update these graphics, ensuring your content is always fresh, relevant, and engaging.

Watch these videos to see how Tweenly seamlessly integrates with the Stream Circle playout solution, making it easier than ever to deliver stunning, information-rich visuals to your audience.

We’re excited to showcase how Tweenly makes it simple to integrate external data sources directly into your broadcast graphics. In these next examples, you’ll see how easily JSON/XML documents and web service APIs can be used to create dynamic, data-driven visuals:

1. Secondary News Tickers and Weather Forecast Announcements: Keep your audience informed with up-to-the-minute news and weather updates. Watch how Tweenly seamlessly pulls data from external sources to create real-time, engaging tickers and announcements.
2. Full-Screen News and Programme-Related Graphics: Discover how you can easily generate full-screen graphics that are rich in information, pulling directly from external data sources. Whether it’s detailed news coverage or programme-related updates, Tweenly ensures your visuals are always accurate and relevant.

Find the data, visualize it with ease, and integrate it into your broadcasts to provide an information-rich TV service that captivates and informs. Watch these examples to see how Tweenly and Stream Circle can transform your broadcasting capabilities!

Both Stream Circle and Tweenly can be seen on the IBC 2024 on the stand #1.C11.

Stream Circle Unveils Advanced Features to Enhance Playout Solution

Stream Circle is thrilled to announce a suite of new features designed to elevate the performance, stability, and scalability of our playout solution. These enhancements ensure that broadcasters can deliver seamless, high-quality content with improved efficiency and reliability. Here’s a closer look at the innovative updates:

Stream Circle Caster Grid

Introducing the Stream Circle Caster Grid, a software-defined stream transcoding and recording tool. This powerful feature is designed to transform any stream format into another, while also providing comprehensive recording capabilities for all streams. The Caster Grid operates independently from the main Stream Circle playout infrastructure but is monitored by the same components, ensuring cohesive management and oversight.

Enhanced Live Feed Control

Our newly implemented live feed control offers detailed monitoring agents that meticulously track traffic, video quality, audio synchronization issues, black frames, and other failures. This feature also includes automated live feed restart capabilities based on predefined conditions and rules, ensuring uninterrupted and high-quality broadcast experiences.

Automated Primary/Secondary Server Handling

To further bolster reliability, Stream Circle now includes automated primary/secondary server handling. This feature leverages monitoring agents to track the behavior of all playout servers, automatically switching between servers as needed. Additionally, it can switch output streams and SDI routings according to predefined conditions, ensuring continuous and error-free broadcasting.

EPG Data Interfaces and APIs

Stream Circle has developed new EPG data interfaces and APIs to facilitate long-term Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data management. This enhancement is based on the schedule data and content metadata stored in the Stream Circle database, offering broadcasters seamless integration and efficient management of programming information.

Comprehensive Component Refactoring

We have undertaken a comprehensive refactoring of the entire Stream Circle ecosystem. This upgrade enhances scalability, stability, and monitoring across all levels, ensuring that our solution can handle growing demands and complex broadcasting environments with ease.

Conclusion

These advancements are designed to enhance the operational stability and scalability of the entire Stream Circle ecosystem across all deployment scenarios. The new playout server technology and live feed handling functions significantly increase operational safety, making Stream Circle the preferred choice for reliable and efficient broadcasting operations.

Discover how these new features can transform your broadcasting experience. Contact us today to learn more about Stream Circle’s cutting-edge playout solution and how it can benefit your operations.

Meet Stream Circle at IBC 2023

We are thrilled to express an invitation to you for the upcoming IBC 2023 This year, we are particularly excited to present our extensions and changes in the Stream Circle Playout Automation technology, poised to redefine the way content is managed and delivered.

In the dynamic world of broadcasting, precision and flexibility are paramount. Our latest Stream Circle releases bring a suite of features designed to empower broadcasters in their everyday operations. Say hello to live preview, an intuitive tool that allows real-time content assessment before airing. Seamlessly integrated, our playlist monitoring and editing feature ensures flawless programming.

Experience the power of live feed recording, capturing every moment for future use. With automated secondary event scheduling and parental guidance logo insertion, never miss a beat in your programming and ensure that viewers are aware of the content suitability. Failover management guarantees uninterrupted broadcasting, while event splitting maximizes content distribution efficiency and accuracy.

Stream Circle comes with intuitive and feature rich user environment

Embrace these cutting-edge enhancements, redefining the way you manage and deliver content to captivate your audience.

Whether you opt for cloud-based or on-premises installation, our comprehensive solution offers a consistent array of features designed to transform your broadcasting experience. Enjoy seamless content management, real-time scheduling, and dynamic graphics integration, ensuring your audience receives top-tier viewing. With both deployment options, you’ll have access to interactive elements, automated failover management, advanced playlist and live event control, and the flexibility to tailor broadcasts to your unique needs.

Whether in the cloud or on your premises, our feature-rich solution guarantees a seamless, efficient, and engaging broadcasting journey.

On top of the playout automation enter Tweenly, a cutting-edge graphics animation tool designed to revolutionize your broadcast graphics using the power of HTML. With its intuitive interface and versatile capabilities, Tweenly empowers broadcasters to create stunning animations that seamlessly integrate with your broadcasts.

Tweenly, feature rich animation broadcast graphics editor and cloud ecosystem

Plans and schedules combined together

If you were a Stream Circle user of previous versions, you know that the system had two types of programs – plan and schedule. A plan was a long-term preparation for the broadcast, and it could be freely edited and contain hundreds to dozens of items, yet loaded quickly in the system. However, before broadcasting by the playout, a plan had to be generated in the schedule for an on-air broadcast. The schedule could be further edited but at a certain price. The schedule involved the generation and technical preparation of all data for the playout microservice, which could cause slower loading. The user had to decide whether to work more at the plan or schedule levels, considering the differences between the two approaches.

The great news is that we have decided to unify this entire process. Whether you create a long-term plan at the level of the primary items or a short-term schedule fine-tuned by secondary events and branding for the given channel does not matter. In new Stream Circle versions, you set up, prepare and save the schedule, mark it as ready-to-air and let playout broadcast your programmed playlist.

Read more in documentation release notes or book a demo to learn more.

The first show at NAB New York 2022

It’s been about a month since the last show in Amsterdam, IBC 2022, and we’re already heading to the next one. Same solution of Stream Circle & Provys integration, this time across the ocean in New York! Keen to present for the first time in one week at NAB Show New York 2022.

Read more about the Stream Circle & Provys integration in the previous article.

The International Broadcasting Convention (IBC)
was held September 9-12 in Amsterdam after a three-year break

Stream Circle was delighted to present and attend exciting meetings with clients and partners. We came to show significant improvements in our product, namely our new playout control, editing monitor, and integration with the Provys traffic management solution. Thank everyone who met us for exciting discussions and insights, making the show memorable.

Improvements and changes in the industry

Among the presentation and meetings, IBC brings a chance to see the improvements and changes in the broadcasting industry. We noticed these interesting news:

   ●   There are exciting user experience improvements in various software products.
   ●   More and more end-user applications perform in browsers or applications using web technologies.
   ●   Component-based services and solutions form the platforms.

The news shapes these trends in the industry:

   ●   Traditional technology leaders move to cloud services.
   ●   There is a push to lower segment markets.
   ●   The solutions are strongly software-defined.
   ●   FAST channels are discussed everywhere.

Stream Circle’s position

How does Stream Circle fit into these trends?

   ●   Stream Circle is a software-defined and hardware-agnostic solution.
   ●   Stream Circle is deployable on-premise and in the cloud, with no changes required in the software.
   ●   Our end-user application is web native with all aspects, including monitoring and preview.
   ●   We are scaleable to support small as well as enterprise operations.
   ●   We integrate OTT platforms to support FAST channels natively.

We are happy to see the proof that Stream Circle perfectly sets and fits in with the news and trends on the market. If you are curious about more details, don’t hesitate to contact us to set up a demo or a meeting to discuss what we can do for your operations.

Stream Circle playout with the Provys broadcast traffic integration

The integration covers end-to-end content management, media management, planning, playout, and reporting workflows benefiting from the strengths of Provys and Stream Circle.

Provys is an enterprise broadcast traffic management software solution supporting all major processes of a broadcaster, from content and rights management to linear and non-linear planning, air-time sales, and production resource management.

Stream Circle is a TV channel automation and playout software platform ready to enrich the broadcasting experience of all players in the media market.

The whole solution stands on open interfaces and BXF data exchange standards, which are native and binding to both solutions. There is no limitation to installing integrated solutions on-premise and in a cloud environment.

One integration in two scenarios

Two workflows are designed based on the different usage scenarios:

1. content and metadata focused, or
2. end-to-end planning and playout focused.

Content and media metadata-based workflow

In this first scenario, PROVYS is in the role of a metadata database, and Stream Circle is in the position of a Media Asset Management system. The outcome workflow is as follows:

1. register new content media files in Stream Circle MAM, ingest and analyse its metadata
2. register titles – content metadata headers – in PROVYS a integrate title media metadata with Stream Circle – placeholder ingest
3. change media file metadata in Stream Circle and propagate these metadata to PROVYS
4. change title metadata in PROVYS and propagate these metadata to Stream Circle

End-to-end planning and playout-based workflow

In the second scenario, PROVYS takes the role of a planning tool, and Stream Circle shows its full-value playout component by mastering the playlist run. The outcome workflow is as follows:

1. prepare playlists in PROVYS using all content metadata from its library
2. enrich playlists in PROVYS with logos and secondary graphics
3. import playlists into Stream Circle
4. run the playlists in Stream Circle playout (modify as they run)
5. import as-run-logs into PROVYS following a real run-down of the playlist

We offer Stream Circle and PROVYS integration as a standard feature of PROVYS and the Stream Circle playout platform.