Pebble Beach Systems announced that leading Middle East broadcaster MBC in Dubai will evaluate Pebble Beach Systems Orca for Disaster Recovery during Ramadan. The broadcaster will evaluate the new software-defined virtualized IP channel solution, Orca, at its Dubai facility. The system, which is being supplied to MBC, is set to be tested as a disaster recovery solution during the forthcoming Ramadan period, 6 June to 5 July.

Orca was launched at last month's 2016 NAB Show. It provides a software-only virtual implementation of the company’s Dolphin integrated channel platform. Running in a virtual machine (VM) in a private cloud with IP inputs and outputs, Orca delivers all the functionality previously handled by discrete hardware servers, graphics and captioning systems within a pure software environment.

New channels on-the-fly

A key feature unique to Orca is its ability to create new IP channels from a series of templates and to deploy them quickly into a running system without having to restart or make configuration changes. Channels can be launched and integrated into a running Marina automation system literally at the click of a button, making it the perfect solution for temporary and event-based services.

Orca leverages the full power of Marina automation’s flexible playlist and is capable of handling dynamic schedule changes. It provides full validation of media and playout elements, and has simple to use, drag and drop channel design and editing tools, and can be deployed quickly in minutes, instead of weeks or months.

Orca also features comprehensive 2D or optional 3D graphics functionality, and complex audio management. It offers optional Grid GPU for high efficiency H.264 encoding & advanced graphics. Hypervisors supported include Xen/Citrix, VMWare and KVM, and its flexible IP I/O supports MPEG2-TS and SMPTE 2022-6.

Nick Barratt, Senior Manager – Broadcast at MBC confirms: “We have partnered with Pebble Beach Systems for a number of years, having initially adopted the Pebble Beach Systems Neptune automation solution for our playout. We are planning to migrate the playout of all existing channels to the company’s Marina platform over the coming 12 months, and look forward to testing the new virtualized IP integrated channel – Orca – under Marina control for use in Disaster Recovery.”