Case Study: Sky News Arabia - TSL

Case Study: Sky News Arabia
Fully file-based News Operations Centre

Sky News Arabia
TSL builds the largest and most advanced News Centre
in the Middle East for Sky News Arabia
From Design to Reality…
Sky News Arabia is a new venture, which will bring world class news coverage to the
Middle East, in the Arabic language, 24/7. It will be transmitted in both SD and HD,
and its news coverage will also be available online, on tablets and on smartphones.
As a start-up, its production facilities represent the state of the art in television and online
news, and building its new centre was one of the largest undertaken in the region.
The broadcaster is a joint venture between BSkyB, the company
owning the UK’s Sky brand, and Abu Dhabi Media Investment
Corporation. Its production facilities are housed in a completely
modernised studio on the twofour54 campus, and a new three storey
block has been built alongside it to house the newsroom, graphics
and editing, and machine rooms and operations centre. The business
requirement was to concentrate on the quality and the scope of
the newsgathering, so workflows in the new facility had to be as
automated and streamlined as possible.
For a very large scale project the timescale was tightly defined, with
the broadcaster planning to award the systems integration contract in
the early part of 2011. System design, construction, installation, and
training and rehearsals – for a largely new staff drawn from the Middle
East & North Africa region – had to be completed for an on-air date in
the spring of 2012.
Following detailed negotiations, Sky News Arabia awarded the
contract to TSL. As a major international systems integrator, TSL
could demonstrate success in large-scale projects, and the ability to
drive leading manufacturers to achieve new levels of integration and
interoperability. It had an existing base in the United Arab Emirates
which would provide local support and staffing. TSL also had facilities
in the UK large enough for the complete system to be built and tested
while the site was being prepared.
Most importantly, it brought a completely vendor-agnostic approach
to system design, which allowed Sky News Arabia to specify some
key pieces of equipment, and to develop a pragmatic approach to
the rest of the architecture, which was important to deliver a system
which was not only functional but easy to support over the lifecycle
of its capital investment.

Studio and control:
A seamless flow
Sky News Arabia elected to create most of its
24 hour output from a single large studio, with
a number of presentation areas within the sets
dedicated to different programmes and parts
of the day. To provide a seamless flow from
one area to another, and to give directors
maximum flexibility, 11 cameras are provided.
Motion graphics, clips and crafted packages are
triggered by the Grass Valley Kayenne.
Sony HD cameras, Vinten Radamec robotic
pedestals, Grass Valley Kayenne production
switchers and Calrec audio mixers were used,
with motion graphics and clips triggered
by the Kayenne switcher from Grass Valley
K2 production servers and the large Vizrt
graphics system. All production content,
including crafted packages are held on the
EVS storage area network, and they too are
cued from the Kayenne.
One of the most distinctive features of the
project is the use of an overall monitoring
and routing layer driving very large monitor
walls: they are amongst the largest ever
built. Routing and processing is by Miranda.
As well as the studio control room, the
large monitor walls provide viewing of all
sources or multi-view layouts in the network
operation centre.
An Avid iNews system provides the editorial
facilities. This is linked, through MOS, to Vizrt
graphics and a large EVS media production
server system, which provides the asset
management for all production content.
As well as controlling recorded material
inserted into the news programming, Harris
provides automated playout, switching
between the studio and recorded content
and commercials. Omneon servers are used
for transmission, and there are two TX suites.
The SD and HD versions of the channel run
basically the same programmes, but graphics
and interstitials are tuned to each variant so
the two are treated as separate outputs.
There is a Spectralogic tape robot linked to
the EVS and Omneon server networks. Front
Porch Digital archive software talks to the
EVS and Harris software to ensure efficient
retrieval of content.
The project also includes the construction of
a small contribution studio.
Instant access to assets
A vast amount of content is planned to arrive
at the station each day, from local crews and
from feeds around the world. Ingest is on to
the EVS server network, from where it can
be accessed by any user.
Highly integrated audio and communications using Calrec, Riedel and advanced telco management from PhoneBOX.
Content can be accessed by any user from the EVS server.
12 edit suites are included in the project,
running Apple’s Final Cut Pro. These are
editing directly on the EVS storage area
network for maximum speed and efficiency.
Completed packages are dropped into a
dedicated folder for checking, quality control
and delivery to playout.
All graphics systems are provided by Vizrt.
Extensive use is made of template graphics,
allowing journalists to complete captions from
their desktops. More sophisticated graphics
and maps are created by specialists and
transferred to the studio for transmission.
Unique: Fully integrated crossvendor
bookings solution
A project of this scale, which looks to
achieve efficiency through automation,
calls for the integration of systems from
a number of manufacturers, which in
turn requires new developments in those
products and to create an open interface
between them. Designing these interfaces
and promoting the development of the
additional functionality is a critical aspect
of the system integrator’s task.
An excellent example is in the unified bookings
system required by Sky News Arabia for its
communications systems around the world. In
the traditional television news operation, each
element required is booked separately, calling
for a lot of manual co-ordination. Sky News
Arabia wanted to be able to make a single
booking for all functionality.
The solution uses the ScheduAll booking
system, to which the manufacturer developed
additional functionality to provide connectivity
with a number of other systems. These
include Miranda routing, quality control and
editing, as well as IP circuits and switches
and recording. An extension to the contract

will add control of the satellite farm, so dishes
and transponders, together with Tandberg
& Harris encoders and decoders, will be
included in the unified booking system.
TSL drove the development of new functionality
for the Broadcast Bionics PhoneBox system.
It is now capable of controlling the Riedel
intercom infrastructure, so that as well as
setting up the complete signal path a ScheduAll
booking also sets up the talkback paths
between the appropriate locations.
The result is that a single booking can set
up an encoder in, say, Cairo, and connect
it via MPLS or satellite path to Sky News
Arabia; route it to a decoder, frame rate
convertor or audio shuffler as required;
record it to the server and update the asset
management; and ensure that all participants
are connected on talkback. All the elements
are automated, so the booking merely
requires source, destination file and time.
Viewer loyalty across
all platforms
All content within the centre is file-based,
and because the station is new there is no
historical backlog of video or audio tape. This
means that all content transfers are over IP.
To accomplish this while achieving broadcast
standards of reliability, and allowing priorities
to be set for traffic close to air time, calls for
careful design of the IP infrastructure. This
is a very significant challenge for the system
designers. While many system integrators still
lack a real understanding of what is required
in this area, TSL has invested significantly in
skills and staff in recent years, recognising
that it is the difference between success
and failure in a tapeless environment.
A Spectralogic tape robot ensures efficient
retrieval of content.
To deliver the required capacity and
latency performance TSL specified multiple
networks, with Cisco Nexus 7000 switches
in a collapsed core topology. This allows the
content network to be managed and for all
performance indicators to be achieved.
Built in to the requirements from the start
was the recognition that television news
now relies on non-broadcast content, and
has to deliver to non-broadcast platforms.
It was a central requirement that Skype
video conversations should be used live
on air, for example, or that YouTube or
other User Generated Content (UGC) videos
should be capable of being broadcast as
soon as they were on line. Given that the
design for Sky News Arabia was being
developed at the time of the revolution
in Egypt, these requirements were very
much in the forefront.
Equally, audience loyalty is retained when
they can access news from their preferred
trusted source wherever they are. Making
the same content available in multiple
formats online for a range of IP devices
from smartphones to the web called for a
fast transcoding farm and the broadcaster’s
own content delivery network to push the
material out.
These new requirements added to the
traditional broadcast requirements of lines
from remote bureaux, ingest, feeds to uplinks
and other broadcast hosts. The result is that
Sky News Arabia’s network operations centre
is large, featuring numerous operational
positions sharing a huge monitor wall:
10 metres wide and with 400 tiles.
Simplified support with
vendor synergy
The philosophy of Sky News Arabia at the
start of the project was to make a significant
capital investment to achieve a system which
worked smoothly and reliably, and used
automation to minimise the requirement
for operational staff. Newsgathering is
expensive, and Sky News Arabia wanted
to devote as much of its operational budget
on getting journalists and crews out to the
scene of breaking news.
The design requirement for the technology
was that the latest thinking in workflow
should be employed to achieve this
seamless automation, and that best
of breed products should be used to
maximise quality and flexibility.
Miranda routers employ high density connectors to
deliver best in class space efficiency.
At the same time, it was recognised that if
there were too many vendors involved, and
therefore too many potentially risky interfaces,
reliability may be compromised. If faults
occurred, valuable time to resolution could be
lost by finger-pointing among manufacturers,
each suggesting another was at fault.
To minimise this problem, where multiple
manufacturers were available for a particular
piece of technology, then preference was
given for those who were either already
involved in the project, or who could
demonstrate strong local support in the
Middle East. For example, Miranda was
providing monitoring and control, so it made
sense to use Miranda routers. Harris was
providing automation and scheduling, so its
IP encoders and decoders were selected.
The intention is to make the whole broadcast
centre as easy to support as possible.
Resolving issues in Pre-Build
Following the competitive selection process,
TSL was appointed as system integrator in
early 2011. Its design and project engineers
worked in partnership with Sky News Arabia’s
launch team, on site in Abu Dhabi, from
March to May to develop the requirements
and detailed design. During this period key
design decisions were made as early as
possible, enabling TSL to place orders on
equipment which might be time-constrained,
and to initiate development of additional
functionality and interface software.
The decision was taken to build the complete
system in one of TSL’s factories in the UK.
While pre-building in this way is routine for
TSL, the Sky News Arabia project was a
major undertaking. There are more than 100
equipment racks in the complete system, >
For further information about TSL please visit: www.tsl.co.uk

meaning that the whole of the factory floor
in one of TSL’s facilities was taken up with
it. Building the racks in the right relative
locations meant that much of the intercabinet
cabling could also be prepared.
The second big advantage was that TSL is
located just to the west of London, close
to the European headquarters of many of
the major suppliers, and a short distance
from Heathrow airport should other product
specialists need to fly in. It meant that
problems and conflicts could be resolved
very quickly.
The system build took from June to
August, with a rolling programme of factory
acceptance seeing a sign-off from Sky News
Arabia in September. While the equipment
was packed up and shipped to the Middle
East preparation and site cabling started
in October. Final installation on site was in
November and December.
Testing on site ran through January 2012,
with site acceptance tests in February.
This leaves plenty of clear time for training,
familiarisation and rehearsals before the on
air date in spring 2012.
Bevan Gibson, Launch Technical Director for Sky News Arabia, adds his perspective:
“The thinking behind Sky News Arabia is to translate the well-established and respected Sky
News values to a new market. Those values include a willingness to use the latest technology to
deliver the most rounded, most up to date reporting, so we knew that this had to be a state of
the art broadcast centre.
“We had just completed a project to move Sky News in the UK to HD, which meant creating a new
production centre and newsroom. That experience was hugely helpful in developing the design for
Sky News Arabia. We took the same philosophy but learnt from our experiences in London.
“We wanted to improve the workflow still further to be as efficient with our staff as possible.
Sky is keen on efficiency that takes advantage of the latest technology which might have a high
capital expenditure but bears dividends in terms of controlled staff costs.
“We also carried out extensive research before making our core infrastructure decisions. We
looked at the technology that was widely used in the Middle East, but we also chose carefully
for technology that was future-proofed. TSL is an independent system integrator, so they had
no agenda in pushing us in any direction other than what they believed would work.
“The TSL design team has had significant input on the project, and what we have jointly created is
pretty advanced for a news environment. The way the scheduling system has been fully integrated
across the whole solution, is a good example of why we are way ahead of anyone else. It is down
to the skills and experience of TSL’s engineers that they not only came up with this cutting edge
integration, but they could also push the vendors beyond their normal comfort zone to make it all
happen. This really makes a big difference in how large complex projects turn out, and it is one of
the reasons we chose TSL in the first place.
“The way we managed the factory build and acceptance parts of the project, was not
the fastest method, but it was a very practical way to work in order to simplify the on-site
implementation, and make effective use of time while the construction workstream was being
completed at the site. Seeing the complete system come together at TSL, proving the original
design concepts to be correct, gave us huge confidence.”
Key suppliers to the
Sky News Arabia
project include:
• Apple – editing
• Avid – newsroom computer system
• Broadcast Bionics – communications
management
• Calrec – audio mixer and distributed
audio processing
• Cisco – broadcast and corporate IP
network infrastructure
• EVS – media production server and
asset management
• Techex (Exterity and Haivision) – IPTV
• EVS/Front Porch Digital – archive
storage management
• Grass Valley – production switcher
and clip servers
• Harris – automation, transmission
scheduling, asset management, IP
encoders and decoders
• Miranda – multi-viewers, control and
monitoring, routing, glue
• Omneon – transmission servers
• Riedel – communications
• ScheduAll – booking and scheduling
• Sony – cameras
• Spectralogic – tape archive
• Vinten Radamec – camera robotics
• Vizrt – graphics
Bureaux and ENG
Alongside the main contract for the
production centre, TSL was also given
the task of procuring, testing and
delivering the equipment for the ENG
kits the station required, and for its
news bureaux operations.
TSL logistics brought a majority of the
equipment together, created the asset
database, performed certified electrical
testing as well as functional tests,
packed and shipped the equipment.
For further information about TSL please visit: www.tsl.co.uk

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