Australia's New Digital Multi-client, Multi-channel Play-out Facility

Amsterdam, The Netherlands (IBC — Stand 1.D11), September 08, 2011 — Grass Valley™ has signed a comprehensive Service Level Agreement (SLA) with MediaHub Australia Pty Ltd., to manage and service MediaHub's new digital, high-definition multi-client, multi-channel digital play-out facility in Sydney. The highly sophisticated and totally file-based facility, which features Grass Valley technologies and systems for high reliability and efficiency, was officially opened in June 2010 and is a joint venture between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and WIN Television Networks (WIN).

Commencing in July 2011, the agreement with Grass Valley formalizes SLA services which have been provided to MediaHub on a month-to-month basis since July 2010. The comprehensive SLA service agreement provides MediaHub with full time, on-site Grass Valley engineers to support and maintain Grass Valley technologies as well as managing third-party equipment suppliers.

The file-based ingest and playout environment, established to manage and distribute SD and HD content, is based on dozens of Grass Valley K2 Summit™ production clients for playout and near-line storage, Maestro™ HD master control and branding systems, Trinix™ NXT multiformat video routers with Jupiter™ control software, GeckoFlex™ signal processing modules, a CS2 Content Management System, and NetCentral™ SNMP-based facility monitoring software.

"This state of the art facility has transformed the capability and capacity for delivering television programming to audiences," said Andrew Hogg, CEO of MediaHub. "With the help of Grass Valley's engineers, we now provide our clients with more options for content delivery than ever before."

The facility has centralized the presentation control operations of the ABC and WIN TV and is designed to deliver 150 channels, with the ability to scale up to more than 300 channels. MediaHub also has the capacity to store over 12,000 hours of content and 150 TB of data.

"MediaHub's SLA agreement provides them with a single point of contact for any technical issues relating to Grass Valley as well as third-party products, to ensure the systems are running 24/7," said Aengus Linehan, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley's Global Services. "We're partnering with more and more media organizations to help support their operations and minimizing the burden placed on their internal engineering resources."

When ABC News 24 launched in July 2010, the MediaHub facility was delivering 32 versions of ABC's channels (ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, and ABC News 24) across 15 service areas. In addition, WIN TV now has the capability of playing out over 80 different SD and HD program streams across over 25 different advertising markets. Each day, MediaHub plays out 23 half-hour local news programs to WIN markets around the country.

"Grass Valley is very pleased to formalize a comprehensive servicing agreement with MediaHub and look forward to helping grow and develop their business in the coming years," added Matthew Christie, General Manager, Oceania region.

As part of its overall SLA program, Grass Valley can provide clients with 24/7/365 emergency technical support, software updates, fast exchange of parts, and field engineering personnel. Many of the largest media companies around the world have turned to Grass Valley for SLA coverage, while an increasing number of existing SLA customers have returned for multi-year extensions and expanded services related to the program.

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About Grass Valley – the Premier Video Technology Solutions Company

With a rich history serving the broadcast and professional video industries, the Grass Valley name is synonymous with innovation, leadership, and performance. With a full range of products and services supporting many of the world's most high-profile television events, Grass Valley offers the most comprehensive portfolio of flexible and cost-effective digital technologies and systems available. Customers deploying Grass Valley solutions include most of the world's leading broadcast and teleproduction facilities, independent video professionals, as well as emerging content creators and distributors providing broadband, telecommunications, and transmission services. When you're watching news, sports, or entertainment programming, whether on a TV, the Web, or a mobile phone, you're watching Grass Valley at work.

For information about Grass Valley products, please visit: www.grassvalley.com