Bahrain TV is the television arm of the Ministry of Information (MI) Kingdom of Bahrain, the nation’s sole public broadcaster based in the Bahraini capital, Manama. Working alongside systems integrator First Gulf Company (FGC, Saudi Arabia), the Pebble team migrated the legacy Pebble systems at the broadcaster with their latest solution for an ST-2110 technology, ensuring that the MI’s six TV channels are ideally positioned for the IP-based future.

The solution is based around Pebble enterprise automation controlling both Pebble Integrated playout channel as well as third-party server, mixer, and routing devices in a single integrated system. The playout component can play out six channels at a time it controls 6 Main and 6 protect server ports, 6 Mixers, and 6 CGs, while ingest can also manage six simultaneous feeds per server providing parallel ingest to main and backup servers. In addition, the solution provides playlist preparation tools and preview list with Junction preview capabilities. The solution also manages media movement providing automated file transfers between video servers, nearline storage and the LTO Archive. Care had to be taken to integrate the Pebble systems seamlessly with best-of-breed components in the Bahrain TV channels workflow, as well as ensuring there was no disruption to viewers during the delicate process of swapping the individual components.