Increased Performance, Lower Energy Costs: Transmission and Automation Today

How important is it for a broadcaster to be green? Put that another way: how important is it for a broadcaster to lower the costs of housing, cooling, powering and maintaining vital infrastructure in use around the clock? As energy costs rise steeply, broadcasters are taking a much closer interest than ever before in this issue. And when meeting the green agenda coincides with straightforward business objectives, being environmentally-friendly looks less like an obligation and more like an opportunity.

Happily for broadcasters and media organizations, the problem posed by the need to go green has arrived at the same time as some solutions: technological innovations that provide a more agile, flexible and efficient alternative to bulky, power-hungry infrastructure. In the field of automation and transmission, the landscape is vastly different in 2010 than it was just five years ago, with the advent of IT-based products ranging from basic channel-in-a-box systems to the full-featured OmniBus iTX – a true successor to the conventional transmission chain.

The distinction between limited channel-in-a-box systems and the full functionality of iTX is an important one. Broadcasters don’t want to accept compromises, even if there are cost and environmental benefits attached. In the same way that nobody wants to save on energy by sitting in the dark, broadcasters can’t think of replacing the infrastructure driving complex, highly-crafted channels if that means reducing production standards, lowering the perceived value of the brand, or making workflow slower and more complicated through limited integration with existing systems. An alternative technology is only truly a good green choice if it provides a means of maintaining – or even improving – standards while delivering energy savings.

iTX provides that real alternative because it rolls all the functionality of the most sophisticated automation and transmission chain into one integrated suite of software applications, running on a standard IT platform. It’s much quicker to install, far more compact, far lighter on power consumption, cabling and cooling, and very much easier to operate and maintain. But crucially it also matches and then exceeds the capabilities of the best conventional transmission chains, without imposing any compromises on the broadcaster.

But how much impact can a more energy-efficient transmission solution have on a broadcaster’s business, and on the environment?

Broadcasting may not contribute directly to global warming on the same scale as air traffic, or the internal combustion engine, but its energy consumption is not insignificant. A single HD channel running on conventional automation and playout equipment consumes in the region of 2,700 watts, calculated without including necessary hardware such as A/V routers shared with other channels, or the power consumption of cooling systems. Hosted on iTX, that same channel needs no more than twenty-five or thirty percent of the space, and requires thirty percent less power. There are large savings also in the ancillary infrastructure required: iTX drastically reduces the amount of cabling and cooling required to house a channel.

Extrapolating these figures using templates from the US Climate Technology Cooperative suggests that a single channel operating on iTX for one year would save the equivalent of 6.26 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions; or, to put it another way, the same as 2,695 litres of petrol – just for a one channel. Now, putting that on a global scale, and considering that the channel count is accelerating rapidly, it’s clear that taken as a whole, the contribution of broadcasting to the worldwide consumption of energy is considerable.

But for the individual broadcaster, what matters most is the profitability, efficiency and adaptability of the business. iTX users range from emerging operators with just a handful of channels, to the largest names in the industry, running iTX-based installations of over 200 channels. No matter what scale a broadcaster is on, big financial savings in transmission and automation are a significant advantage. An advanced IT-based automation and transmission platform that delivers more features and better performance than the conventional infrastructure can, uses much less power and rack space, and requires substantially lower investment to install, is not only greener but more profit-making. In the medium to long term, with energy prices forecast to rise very sharply, running costs will become more critical to business survival than they are today. Governments committing to ambitious energy targets are also raising the prospect of carbon offset costs and other energy levies on businesses to encourage efficiency. These are all factors that are feeding into the planning and purchasing strategies of broadcasters and media organizations.

In 2010, the iTX green alternative is a reality, and it’s already driving over a thousand channels worldwide, providing the platform for broadcasters to launch breakthrough facilities and services at the top end of the broadcast market while achieving serious financial and environmental savings.