RNNTV – BLNewsTicker and BLBBS

Customer: RNNTV
Application: Bannister Lake BLNewsTicker and BLBBS
Platform: Harris/Inscriber IconStation with RTXPorts

Printable Version

RNNTV required a comprehensive on air branding solution to complement their Harris IconStation systems. Currently broadcasting to 3 separate markets, RNNTV required a solution dynamic enough to handle data variations for all 3 regions while maintaining a common interface to minimize the operator training required to maintain all 3 regions.

  • Headlines and data are stored in a centralized database; then managed through the BLBBS interface.
  • BLBBS Supports, o Multiple users, simultaneous input.
  • Manual input for Breaking News and School Closings events.
  • Automated input from multiple data feeds including: AP, TickerTech & custom XML.
  • Automated categories include: Sports, Weather, Traffic and Headlines.
  • Provides Independent control of individual graphic elements.
  • Automation support through configurable GPI triggers.
  • Dynamic progress bar shows stories remaining per topic/category.
  • Station branding includes current time and temperature.

Pebble Beach Systems Features Chameleon with Dolphin Automation

Pebble Beach Chameleon

 

CAMBRIDGE ON 9-11-2107 –  Bannister Lake Chameleon, the data and graphics broadcast platform will be on display with Pebble Beach systems, Stand 8, B68.

“The Chameleon integration with Pebble Beach requires no additional 3rd party graphic editors”, says Georg Hentsch, “Chameleon is a comprehensive ‘all in one’ graphic playout solution that addresses data, branding, and graphic playout.

Customers of Pebble Beach systems’ Dolphin product, now have an option to produce an advanced ticker and branding solution using Chameleon’s HTML5 graphics engine.  No need for an additional graphic CG systems.

IBC 2017 attendees can see the products and request further information from each company. Bannister Lake at the Ontario, Canada Pavilion in Stand 2.A46 and Pebble Beach, Stand 8 B68.

 

About Chameleon and Bannister Lake

The all-In-one solution for branding and news content delivery is an adaptable media graphics solution for NDI, SDI and Digital online applications, containing the company’s best branding and ticker elements that media organizations expect in an increasingly on-demand broadcast environment.  Recently used at NDI Central NewTek booth and Broadcast Beat’s production at the NAB show, the versatile software system, blends seamlessly with other tech solutions.  Bannister Lake has partnered with leaders in the broadcast industry such as Imagine Communications, Grass Valley, Broadstream, AJA Video and Ross Video.

About Pebble Beach and Dolphin

Pebble Beach Systems is a leading developer and supplier of automation, channel in a box and content management solutions for TV broadcasters, service providers, and cable and satellite operators.  Products are flexible, reliable and scalable, and designed to cater for all channel types. Our innovative solutions manage acquisition, file-based workflows, archiving and multi-channel playout at large and small installations worldwide.

 

CTV News Channel

CTV Bannister

 

Super Ticker and Brando Provide Workflow + Data Solution at CTV News Channel

CAMBRIDGE, ON – 07-27-2017 – CTV recently launched a new national look for CTV News Channel, the Canadian company’s 24 hour station, completing phase one of a two phase reconfiguration of data workflow for the popular Canadian broadcast news network. Successfully utilizing two components of Bannister Lake’s Chameleon platform, Super Ticker and Brando.

Super Ticker and Brando were created for data publishing and for scalable multi-channel branding for media companies that depend upon  a heavy flow of real-time information.  “The next phase is to add sponsorship support”, adds George Hentsch, “That will be taken care of by Brando and we will be delivering CTV sponsorship capability in the next few weeks.”

CTV News Channel is a leading broadcast news service in Canada. Owned by Bell Media, the giant  programming network purchased Super Ticker and Brando Enterprise in 2013.   News Channel is a new installation of their existing enterprise license.

CTV News Channel celebrates 20 years on the air this September.

 

PR and Communications Contact:

Stephanie Daye   

Twitter: @bannisterlake  

Email: stephanie@bannisterlake.com

Mobile: 902 877 0975

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.

bannisterlake.com

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

 

 

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.

BL

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

PS

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

BL

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

PS

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.

BL

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

PS

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.

BL

Of course. You need time.

PS

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.

BL

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.

PS

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.

BL

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.

PS

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!

BL

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.

PS

Great. You too.

8 Years of XPression

Our CG Journey.

 

As we approach our 8th anniversary of being Ross Video XPression developers, I reflect upon how we got here.

 

Up until 2009, all of our broadcast graphics development had been on the Inscriber platform using the RTX api. It had served us well but there were concerns about whether the Inscriber platform was keeping up technically. Also, with the acquisition of Inscriber by Leitch and then Harris, there were worries about Inscriber’s future.

 

In 2008, we started our investigation into an alternative CG. We had a close look at many of the leading CGs and even a few obscure ones, some of which have faded into the sunset. They were all fine but Francis and I were never satisfied with the programming api to those CGs.

We continued our search during our annual visit to NAB in 2009. D’Arcy and Francis raved about a CG being shown in the Ross booth which came about from an acquisition of Media Refinery. I finally popped by the booth an hour before the final bell and was given a demo by my old friend Hans. Within minutes, I knew we had found our CG.

 

 

I look back at all the software, both products and custom, we have developed which use XPression. With pride, we identify ourselves as XPression developers. And we thank Ross Video for keeping XPression on the top of the charts. Unlike most acquisitions, Ross poured resources into XPression and the product continues to evolve.

It’s easy to take for granted but BL wishes to thank Ross Video for their support of XPression. BL will continue to ride the XPR wave forever.

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