Ross’ XPression Brand-it and Tick-it Launch at News 12

Ross Video’s XPression Brand-it and Tick-it Launch at News 12 in New York

CAMBRIDGE, ON 07-10-2017 – Bannister Lake and Ross Video continue to provide current news and weather media companies with the latest in branding and ticker workflow systems. Adding to that extensive list is the recent purchase of Ross’ XPression Brand-it and Tick-it by Altice USA’s News 12 Traffic and Weather suite of channels in the New York Metropolitan Area. Final training and orientation was completed last month.

“We provided a data, branding and ticker solution for News 12’s five weather and traffic stations that service the tri-state area,” stated Georg Hentsch, president of Bannister Lake. “News 12 wanted an automated solution to display up-to-the minute weather conditions along with public transit status, local traffic conditions, drive times and weather alerts.”

“Ross Video and the XPression team are proud to partner with News 12 to provide unique news and information for ticker, time/temperature bugs and sponsor integration on each of their unique regional channels in the largest television market in the USA, ” states Patrick Twomey, director of marketing, product management and business development – XPression for Ross Video.

XPression Brand-it is an automated, multi-channel, collaborative branding workflow server, designed to simplify complex channel branding requirements. All access to Brand-it is browser based, allowing anyone connected to a local or wide-area network to enter or schedule content from any location. Essentially, Brand-it is a workflow server that operates as a “plug and play” model, making it easier for station employees with appropriate access to quickly and easily develop their brand through scalable channel modules.

To test drive Brand-it or Tick-it call our sales staff to arrange a meeting with a representative at Ross or Bannister Lake:

sales@bannisterlake.com sales@rossvideo.com

About Ross Video

Passionate about live production, Ross Video designs, manufactures and delivers dependable technology and services that power exceptional live video productions seen by billions of viewers around the world every day. Ross Video’s goal is to make it easy for customers to create compelling news, weather and sports broadcasts, engaging material for sports stadium screens, legislative assemblies, entertainment shows and rock concerts, and inspiring content for houses of worship.

Relentlessly innovating, Ross Video delivers the world’s widest range of products and services for augmented reality and virtual sets, mobile live-event solutions, real-time motion graphics, robotic camera systems, social-media management, production switchers, routers, infrastructure products, video servers, newsroom systems, terminal equipment and more.

Ross products and services are designed to offer best-in-class system integration and unmatched customer choice by both working together seamlessly and integrating tightly with third-party solutions.

Ross Video has offices around the world, and provides free-for-life telephone support staffed by technical experts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—even for products bought on eBay. Recognizing the time-critical nature of the broadcast industry, all Ross employees are empowered to provide “whatever it takes” customer service, even down to renting helicopters when necessary to deliver needed parts and service.

About Bannister Lake Inc.

Bannister Lake is a leading provider of professional video graphic display solutions for broadcast television, cable, satellite, audio/visual and information presentation applications worldwide. Our solutions integrate seamlessly with your existing infrastructure while automating the integration and display of external data sources, improving the productivity of your organization. Visit us online at www.bannisterlake.com.

Ross Video Media Contact: Bannister Lake Media Contact:

Sara Bell,

Media Relations Specialist

Tel: +1 613-652-3020
Email: sbell@rossvideo.com

Twitter: @ross_video

www.rossvideo.com

Stephanie Daye

Director, PR and Communications

Email: stephanie@bannisterlake.com

Twitter: @bannisterlake

www.bannisterlake.com

July 5, 2017June 22, 2018

Query With Pete Shields

Pete Shields is the Executive Producer of News 12 in New York.

With 5 stations the company looks to Pete and his team to quickly process data on a daily basis for over 3 million subscribers.

News 12 Traffic and Weather Channels regional hyper-local television channels owned and operated by News 12 Networks (Altice USA), the first, largest and most watched regional news provider in the US. They recently updated their 5 traffic and weather stations using Ross Xpression, powered by Bannister Lake’s OEM product Brand-it and Tick-it, a network branding and automated news ticker solution.

Bannister Lake sat down with News 12’s Pete Shields to talk about Brand-it and Tick-it.

Bannister Lake

Good afternoon. How are things going? I know News 12 launched your new look early last week, and I wanted to get your take on Brand-it and Tick-it?

Pete Shields

So far our experience has been excellent. Honestly our working relationship with Bannister Lake so far has been unparalleled. The customer service has been awesome. Al and Georg have been incredibly receptive regarding any changes that we were requesting. We had a joke here at the office; we actually asked for something and the next morning the new software version was waiting for us.

That’s good. When you are dealing with a larger company sometimes you kind of get lost in the shuffle.

It’s been an absolutely incredible service experience. I highly recommend them to anybody who is looking for a ticker solution.

Good to know. Can I ask, how you are using the service?

What we’ve done is created an info bar for our five regional traffic and weather channels. So we are using it to update automated traffic and weather data/information 24/7. We are actually doing it through a mix of graphics. We also have animated sponsorship logos so the entire thing works interactively to pull in the right information and get the playlists the way we want. The most important factor was to not bury people in certain topics but to allow them to move freely between different pieces of editorial content and have it all work well with the sponsorship opportunities.

Can I call you in a few months for more information regarding how your sponsorship platform works?

Absolutely. The two reasons we were able to sell this service to our management was, first, that it replaced a couple of services that were at end of life which was going to be equal in cost Brand-it and Tick-it so purchasing this with the added flexibility fit our budget. Second, Brand-it and Tick-it’s animation capabilities. We were working with still graphics only and wanted to overhaul the look, add content, and ever so importantly, add value to sponsorship opportunities. So to answer your question, we’ve only begun with the new sponsorship opportunity because we just launched but our sales team is optimistic and excited by what we are now able to do.

Of course. You need time.

It’s difficult to track right now with the sponsorship but we feel we are starting in a good place after what we spent to replace the equipment that, quite simply, wasn’t as flexible.

And Tick-it and Brand-it are ever evolving platforms. The software is constantly being developed. You’ll get updates from Ross and Bannister Lake, with additional features to show you how to monetize.

Yeah we had talked about that. That was one of the things that I was getting at too is that we also suggested a number of features. An incredible number of features over the last 3 months. The Bannister Lake team was so responsive each time we requested a feature, new versions of the software was available to us so quickly, performing exactly the way we wanted those new features to act.

With assistance from clients such as yourself, that’s how we can improve on our products. Every package has to suit a particular style of production.

I have other vendors. We ask for feature upgrades and we are on a list and we may or may not make it to the next release. With Bannister Lake we weren’t even waiting for a release. It was the next morning! It was like alright – load it up!

We like to be responsive. Historically, the company operates as a hybrid – responsively tech based but also service based. We’ll get in touch in 6 months to see how it’s evolving. Best of luck.

Great. You too.

October 28, 2016June 22, 2018

Help!! I need somebody…

Most people aren’t familiar with our site. But, did you know we have a pretty good wiki!?

It was recently revamped to make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. And our developers frequently update the site whenever there are new features added.

Producers have Content Controls and Broadcast Controls. Designers have Scene Tags information for objects and animation tags.

If you can’t find something, let us know. It may be because we’ve misplaced it, or it’s too hard to find and we’ll need to fix it.

Community and Content Groups

Content Group Support

We’ve recently added a much requested feature in Super Ticker and Community: Content Group Admin. Essentially this means as a system Admin you can assign an Admin to a content group, which in turn will allow for that admin to create a series of user accounts for that specific content group. This is especially useful with Community. Along with this new feature, we’ve modified security groups to restrict what users are allowed to see.

Content Groups have also been updated across the board in anticipation for the big Community update. All modules will support content groups in the near future.

Community

WDAY in Fresno is about to start their winter season and one of the requests they had was to have over 300 users for each of their School Districts. Hence, when there’s a snow storm and the schools are closed, the School district administrator can log onto Community and update their School Districts’ status.

After a status update, our new Community Reader will automatically update your own instance of Super Ticker, therefore, ready for broadcast.

Finally, the new update isn’t only limited to Closings, but also Events, Stories and Scores.

Instructions on how to use this new Module is found here.

Query and Google

A couple weeks ago, Georg posted an article with new support for Google Login, Sheets (Scores and Closings) and Calendar. Follow the links to view our wiki page offering step by step instructions on how to utilize these new features.

In addition to Google API, standard Query templates have been added when updating Super Ticker. I’ve also added some Query samples on our wiki for you to use and test. Query is also supported in our Blade Module.

Brando BXF support

A (Protrack by Myers Info Systems) reader was recently requested. BXF is the supported format. Brando already read many other traffic file formats, but BXF is one of the industry leading formats. With this new reader, Brando finally covers almost 90% of all types of traffic data, making it compatible with virtually any broadcast master control traffic systems.

For more information fill out a Request A Quote or contact sales@localhost

October 5, 2016June 22, 2018

Bannister Lake Meets Google

by Georg Hentsch

Here on The Lake, we rely on Google to get us through the day: Drive, Communities, Hangouts, Calendar, Gmail, Search, YouTube, Play and Photos. We may even have one of the most enthusiastic Google Evangelists imaginable; I won’t name names. So, it’s no surprise we’re always looking for opportunities to use Google in our software.

So, we’re proud to announce these Google api projects:

Google login support
Google Calendar support for Super Ticker
Google Sheets support for Super Ticker

On top of our LDAP support in Flow, we’ve added Google login support which is especially attractive for cloud users. No more dealing with yet another login/password. It even has the benefit of bypassing the login screen if the user is already logged into Google. We’re initially supporting this in Super Ticker and Community but it’ll find its way into Brando.

For Google Calendars, we’ve taken the standardization approach by supporting RFC 2445 also known as iCalendar. Since Google Calendars also support this standard, we can now read any publicly shared Google Calendar into our Events data type. This opens up 1000s of public calendars for our customers to use in Super Ticker.

Finally, we’re using the Google api for Sheets to read sheets into standard data types like scores and closings. We’ll follow that up to also support reading sheets into our Custom data type giving us a way to contain basically anything.

What’s next? I’m sure our in-house Google Evangelist will push us into more Google projects and our products will be the better for it.

September 27, 2016June 22, 2018

The New Data Types Are Coming!

Our customers have always pushed us to provide containers that can store their unique data requirements. Take a sports score. At one point, it was enough to show the teams, score and status. But over time, customers wanted to show ball possession, the count, shots on goal, team rankings, standings and records.

We solved “Creeping Featuritis” simply and expansively: dynamic fields. And added dynamic fields to all data types.

This made it possible to contain anything using one of the existing data types. However, what also happened is we ended up hacking stories because that became the most common container for storing those “custom” data types.

So, what better way to solve a custom data type than to create a custom data type. Look for a new icon in that Content Control in the near future called Custom. It’ll be similar to stories without the story. It’ll have a way of organizing using topics and playlists as in stories but custom gives dynamic fields preferential treatment. No longer do you have to open a dialog to see them. They are given primetime.

Custom is a great way to store anything you can dream up. It’ll get all the other great data treatment like rundown, BLADE and Query support.

Query you say? What is that? Have you ever wanted to create a playlist of all close election races where incumbents are losing, scores of games in progress, stocks that are tanking or stories that include a certain keyword? That’s what we call dynamic playlists and they were essentially impossible to do until now.

We’ve added a new Query data type which is essentially a database query. If you can dream it, it can be described in SQL. And these queries also get the full data treatment: rundowns & BLADE. Here are some examples:

The reason Query is dynamic is because the actual SQL gets executed at runtime. So, when in a rundown for a player, the player executes the Query as late as possible. Same for BLADE: the query gets executes on the api call.

What’s more, Query can be shared among all Super Ticker users. If you have a Query you think is useful to others, you can publish it. Once published, users can see and deploy the query. As you’d expect, once deployed, the query can be fiddled as required. The main reason for publish/deploy of Queries is we can’t expect all users to be SQL experts. But that being said, we do provide a Query Wizard to make life easier for those less than hardcore users.

With Custom’s and Query’s inauguration, we say farewell to Ski Reports. We’re phasing that oddball out. If you want Ski Reports, use Custom!

Also, look for big enhancements to some of our other data types like Closings, Events, Media and Weather but I’ll save that for a future blog.

September 27, 2016June 22, 2018

Intro to the blog world

This blog is dedicated to our loyal customers who have used or are thinking of using any of our Bannister Lake products.

Every couple of weeks or so, we will provide tips and tricks, as well as updates and road-maps of our products. It might be more frequent than that especially if we have something we’re excited to share with you.

So lets start.

Super Ticker

Our month of September has been busy. Our developers have added a few features this past month for Super Ticker.

We’ve added a community module to Super Ticker which will soon read content from our Community Instances.

Yes, but Al, what does this mean???

It means with the upcoming winter season, you can assign accounts to school boards to populate school closures. Or same with stores for the holiday season. Community hockey teams can input the game’s results so that the data can be shared to media outlets or websites. It’s a great way to share important community data.

Click HERE for more information about Community.
http://community.bannisterlake.com is currently LIVE.
For your free account, please email sales@localhost

Google Sheets

Do you want to manually insert score results from various leagues and games at once from a single shared location? You can do so using Super Ticker, but it may become a hassle with all the clicking. An alternative is to use our new Google Sheets Score Reader. This reader will link to any google sheet using our Scores Template and make it easy for production, or sports producers to enter results.

For more information, check out our wiki.

For more information on getting an update for Super Ticker, contact sales@localhost

A significant feature was added to Brando. Some advanced BLADE features were added, which allows you to create a Query based on a channel in your database. From there, an xml can be generated, allowing you to populate any CG system or Website with scheduling content. The XML will dynamically update based on the time of day, so you will always be aware of what show is coming up next and on which channel.

For more information fill out a Request A Quote or contact sales@localhost

August 24, 2016May 17, 2018

Bannister Lake Integrates NewTek NDI Technology for Live IP Production Workflows

CAMBRIDGE, ON, Canada, August 24, 2016 – Bannister Lake, a leading provider of broadcast data aggregation and graphics solutions, today announced its adoption of NewTek’s Network Device Interface (NDI™) technology for live IP production workflows over Ethernet networks. With the integration of NDI, Bannister Lake’s widely-deployed software offerings will be recognizable as video sources by other NDI-enabled devices and applications on the same network.

Bannister Lake’s initial use of NDI technology will be in the Super Ticker Chameleon data presentation, management and playout system for broadcast and information displays. Announced earlier this month, Super Ticker Chameleon extends Bannister Lake’s proven data aggregation platform with new graphics creation tools and hybrid playout capabilities, forming a tightly-integrated graphics and data engine for distribution targets ranging from television news channels to digital signage and websites. Chameleon’s NDI support enables real-time graphic and alpha channel playout to other NDI-enabled production solutions over an IP network.

“The broadcast and media production industries’ embrace of live, IP-based workflows continues to accelerate, both in IP-only deployment models and hybrid operations with baseband SDI,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “Our integration of NewTek’s NDI in Super Ticker Chameleon exemplifies our commitment to this transition. We have been impressed with both the NDI SDK itself and NewTek’s approach to making it an open technology, and we’re pleased to be working with them to deliver the benefits of IP production workflows to our customers.”

NewTek’s NDI technology enables multiple video systems and applications to identify and communicate bi-directionally with one another over IP, and to encode, transmit and receive many streams of high quality, low latency, frame-accurate video and audio in real time. This benefits any network-connected video device, including video mixers, graphics systems, capture cards, cameras and many other production devices and applications. Bannister Lake solutions will be part of the NewTek Developer Network, the industry’s largest ecosystem of IP-enabled products.

“IP workflows are revolutionizing video production, with the momentum driven by a combination of enabling technologies, customer demand and vendor support,” said Michael Kornet, executive vice president of Business Development for NewTek. “The adoption of NDI by innovators such as Bannister Lake for their best-of-breed solutions is helping to make it the most widely deployed IP production workflow on the market today, and we’re excited to welcome Bannister Lake to NewTek’s NDI ecosystem.”

NDI is now available from NewTek’s royalty free software developer kit (SDK) for any company looking to establish IP workflows within their organization, or in production tools and systems they manufacture.

Super Ticker Chameleon with NDI integration will be highlighted at the upcoming IBC2016 Conference and Exhibition, taking place September 9-13 in Amsterdam. Bannister Lake will exhibit at IBC2016 with partners including BroadStream Solutions (stand #8.B35) and Imagine Communications (stand #4.A01).

July 27, 2016November 17, 2017

Bannister Lake Software Introduces Super Ticker Community for Public Submission of Broadcast Data

Bannister Lake Software today announced Super Ticker Community, a public-use variant of the company’s highly-regarded Super Ticker data aggregation solution for broadcasting and information display. Complementing Super Ticker’s proven ease and efficiency in managing automated data feeds from premium third-party sources, the cloud-based Super Ticker Community provides a publicly-accessible portal for the submission of information such as school closings, special events, local sports scores, public interest announcements and more.

Bannister Lake’s Super Ticker software is used by a multitude of top-tier broadcasters and media
companies to aggregate, manage and moderate data feeds from such eminent providers as The
Associated Press (AP), Stats Inc., the U.S. National Weather Service, Twitter, Agence France-Presse
(AFP) and many more. Adding Super Ticker Community gives existing Super Ticker customers a
rich new source of data from a potentially vast array of public contributors.

“Super Ticker customers have long enjoyed its many advantages in aggregating and combining
automated, external feeds with their own original content,” said Georg Hentsch, president,
Bannister Lake. “As essential as these paid and free third-party sources are, locally-oriented data further tightens connection between broadcasters and their community. By enabling authorized users from the general public to directly provide data through an easy-to- use Internet front end, Super Ticker Community provides a rich source of local content while freeing broadcasters from the costly effort of manually inputting this information themselves.”

Like the flagship Super Ticker, Super Ticker Community offers an array of powerful features including an intuitive, web-based interface; Content Groups to partition and restrict content access; the BLADE RESTful web API for custom integration; and dynamic fields for complete flexibility in supporting any type of data.

A shared, multi-tenant Super Ticker Community cloud instance is available for free use by current Super Ticker customers with active maintenance agreements, and allows publicly-submitted data to be accessed via the BLADE interface. Dedicated Super Ticker Community instances can be purchased on a monthly or yearly subscription basis, providing complete user administration and Content Group management functionality while enabling Community data to be synchronized directly to existing Super Ticker deployments.

Extending its value beyond the Super Ticker user base, new customers can also purchase dedicated
Super Ticker Community subscriptions for standalone use, retrieving data through the BLADE interface as a public information aggregation portal for websites, character generators and digital signage.

Super Ticker Community, Super Ticker and other Bannister Lake Software solutions will be highlighted at the upcoming IBC2016 Conference and Exhibition, taking place September 9-13 in Amsterdam. Bannister Lake will exhibit at IBC2016 with partners including BroadStream Solutions (stand #8.B35) and Imagine Communications (stand #4.A01).

July 21, 2016November 17, 2017

Super Ticker Adds Support for the Xignite Financial Data Cloud

Bannister Lake is pleased to announce that Super Ticker now supports the award-winning Xignite Market Data Cloud. Named to the Forbes FinTech 50 list and as one of the “Ten Coolest Brands in Banking”, Xignite provides cloud-based, financial market data APIs with exceptional breadth and depth.

Xignite’s portfolio is truly astounding. With data for more than 50 top global exchanges and top market movers lists, Xignite gives Super Ticker the most complete financial coverage.

Xignite data is easy for Super Ticker customers to use, providing instant results for quotes and leader lists which get mapped into Super Ticker playlists.

The new Xignite reader is available free to all Super Ticker users with active maintenance agreements.