Nexstar Ramps Up KWKT’s News Production Facility with Core News™

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – July 12, 2017 – Bitcentral, Inc., a leader in the broadcast media industry, providing efficient workflow solutions that maximize the value of media. Today it announced that KWKT, a Fox-affiliated television station located in Waco, Texas and owned by Nexstar Media Group has launched their own news production operation with Core News. Bitcentral’s project management capabilities were key in Nexstar’s decision to continue deploying Core News across their stations for greater visibility, to create, manage and deliver quality content from anywhere, at any time.

KWKT now has a full Bitcentral playout solution integrated into their workflow, driving play-to-air servers and ingest encoding, taking rundowns to air without a hitch. Writers, producers and directors can now attach items to their stories in rundowns with multiple file type options, access all video sources (live and non-live) and manage content in real time, quickly and efficiently within a unified and intuitive environment.

 

About Bitcentral

With corporate headquarters in Newport Beach, CA and Latin American headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico, Bitcentral provides efficient and customized software solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our Core News solution is #1 in U.S. News Production, with over 255 TV stations going to air every day. This scalable system allows stations of all sizes to unify their story production processes with the most relevant features at the highest efficiency, with rock solid reliability and world class support.

Bitcentral is a software company dedicated to helping traditional broadcasters evolve in a world where content is coming from anywhere and going everywhere. Our products transform media operations with tools that enable content producers to deliver exceptional programming to their viewers and help their organizations grow each day. Over 1,000 media operations worldwide rely on Bitcentral news production and master control automation solutions and we’re proud to deliver the most outstanding customer experience in our industry for over 20 years. Thank you to all our customers who have helped Bitcentral grow. We are more motivated than ever to help you improve your media workflows to increase your productivity.

If you’d like an expert at Bitcentral to walk you through our workflow solutions, email lbennington@bitcentral.com

 


www.es.bitcentral.com

For media inquiries contact Sonia Fernandez: sfernandez@bitcentral.com

Bitcentral Announces KTAB/KRBC Nexstar Station Goes Live with Core News™

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – June 26, 2017 – Bitcentral, Inc., a provider of efficient digital and broadcast video efficient media workflows that maximize the value of media, today announced the successful launch of Abilene, TX station KTAB/KRBC on its new complete Dual-Control-Room CORE Select system based on Bitcentral’s Core News solution, #1 in its market.

 

Core Select

Core News is the leading live news production system for broadcasters globally with a proven U.S. leading market share. This scalable and modular system allows for stations of all sizes to unify their story production processes, while sharing content across station groups with simple drag and drop story sharing.

Bitcentral extends its congratulations and appreciation to the staff of KTAB/KRBC for their partnership throughout the implementation process and looks forward to being a valued partner moving forward.

 

About Bitcentral

The company, whose corporate headquarters is in Newport Beach, CA and whose Latin American headquarters is in Mexico City, Mexico, provides software solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our reliable and flexible product offerings provide customers with the features they want and world class support to back them up. Since 2000, we have gained a trusted partnership reputation with news and media customers, providing them with efficient media workflows that result in higher productivity – all while helping them increase their audience reach and competitive market position. We design forward looking, pragmatically designed and exceptionally reliable media solutions in news, sports, and emerging-platform content.

We are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive sharing and listening to understand, an environment that attracts and retains the right talent, as well as to providing the right resources and the right tools for a productive and rewarding work environment.

If you’d like an expert at Bitcentral to walk you through our workflow solutions, please email us at sales@bitcentral.com.

For media inquiries contact Sonia Fernandez: sfernandez@bitcentral.com

 

Bitcentral Announces KTHV Station Goes Live with Precis™.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Jun 21, 2017 – Bitcentral, Inc., a software company providing solutions that maximize the value of media, announced the successful launch of Little Rock, AR station KTHV on its news production system, Precis™ KTHV now has a full playout solution integrated into their workflow, driving play-to-air servers and ingest encoding, taking rundowns to air without a hitch. Writers, producers and directors can now quickly attach items to their stories in rundowns with multiple file type options, access all video sources (live and non-live) and manage publishing quickly – all in real time. Bitcentral is excited to provide efficient media digital and broadcast video workflows to KTHV.

Congratulations to the staff at KTHV and thank you for your partnership throughout the implementation process! – Bitcentral team

About Precis

Precis is the Playout module of Bitcentral’s Core News™ solution, built on the foundation of Bitcentral’s leading news production solution – currently in use at over 255 U.S. TV stations.
Equipped with NRCS integrated Active Panel, rundowns, stories and play-out, PRECIS’ simple, reliable and efficient workflows are the cornerstone of the Bitcentral’s Core News system, delivering a unified and intuitive environment for optimum content management, closing the gap between content creation and delivery.
With our certified Integrated workflows and interoperability our customers can work with a diverse set of 3rd party vendors such as Avid™, Grass Valley™, Ross™, Sony™ and many more integrations, plus we include plug-in integration with popular Non-Linear Editors (Adobe Premier Pro, Grass Valley Edius, Final Cut Pro X) that allows for easy video publishing to user selected NRCS rundowns and stories.

About Bitcentral

With corporate headquarters in Newport Beach, CA and Latin American headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico, Bitcentral provides efficient and customized software solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. From newsroom to board room, you are in control. Our Core News solution, the #1 news production platform in the U.S., delivers the perfect blend of field-centric workflows and deep functionality with rock-solid reliability.

As a software company first, Bitcentral helps traditional broadcasters profitably evolve in a world where content is coming from anywhere and going everywhere. Our products transform media operations with tools that enable content producers to deliver exceptional programming to their viewers and help their organizations grow each day. Over 1,000 media operations worldwide rely on Bitcentral news production and master control automation solutions and we’re proud to deliver the most outstanding customer experience in our industry for over 20 years. Thank you to all our customers who have helped Bitcentral grow. We are more motivated than ever to help you improve your media workflows to increase your productivity.

If you’d like an expert at Bitcentral to walk you through our workflow solutions, send us a request from www.es.bitcentral.com.

For media inquiries contact Sonia Fernandez: sfernandez@bitcentral.com

Bitcentral Announces KAMR Station Goes Live with Core News

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – May 5, 2017 – Bitcentral, Inc., a provider of digital and broadcast video workflow solutions, today announced the successful launch of Amarillo, TX station KAMR on its news production suite, Core News. Nexstar-owned KAMR, now has a complete news production solution, our perfect blend of field-centric workflows, deep functionality across the entire station group and rock-solid reliability: Core News.

KAMR Go Live Update

Core News is an easy-to-use modular news production platform that combines content discovery, capture, editing, playout, publishing, collaboration, asset management and archiving into a single unified workflow. Bitcentral extends its congratulations and appreciation to the staff of KAMR for their partnership throughout the implementation process and looks forward to being a valued partner moving forward.

About Bitcentral

The company, whose corporate headquarters is in Newport Beach, CA and whose Latin American headquarters is in Mexico City, Mexico, provides software solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our reliable and flexible product offerings provide customers with the features they want and world class support to back them up. Since 2000, we have gained a trusted partnership reputation with news and media customers, providing them with efficient media workflows that result in higher productivity – all while helping them increase their audience reach and competitive market position. We design forward looking, pragmatically designed and exceptionally reliable media solutions in news, sports, and emerging-platform content.

We are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive sharing and listening to understand, an environment that attracts and retains the right talent, as well as to providing the right resources and the right tools for a productive and rewarding work environment.

Bitcentral Announces WHTM Station Goes Live with Core News

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – April 21, 2017 – Bitcentral, Inc., a provider of digital and broadcast video workflow solutions, announced today the successful launch of Harrisburg, PA station WHTM on its news production suite, Core News.

Nexstar-owned WHTM now has a complete news production, media management, collaboration and archiving solution in Core News.

Nexstar’s WHTM launches with Bitcentral Core News

“There were outstanding integration efforts by the Bitcentral team here at WHTM.  The entire process was well thought out, and worked with precision. We could not be happier with the results. We did our best to be sure things were ready and I believe it came together well” said Keith Blaisdell, director of broadcast operations for WHTM; “We really appreciate the dedicated support and look forward to a great long term relationship with Bitcentral”

Core News is an easy-to-use modular news production platform that combines content discovery, capture, editing, playout, publishing, collaboration, asset management and archiving into a single unified workflow. Bitcentral extends its congratulations and appreciation to the staff of WHTM for their partnership throughout the implementation process and looks forward to being a valued partner moving forward.

About Bitcentral

The company, whose corporate headquarters is in Newport Beach, CA and whose Latin American headquarters is in Mexico City, Mexico, provides software solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our reliable and flexible product offerings provide customers with the features they want and world class support to back them up. Since 2000, we have gained a trusted partnership reputation with news and media customers, providing them with efficient media workflows that result in higher productivity – all while helping them increase their audience reach and competitive market position. We design forward looking, pragmatically designed and exceptionally reliable media solutions in news, sports, and emerging-platform content.

We are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive sharing and listening to understand, an environment that attracts and retains the right talent, as well as to providing the right resources and the right tools for a productive and rewarding work environment.

Core News’ New Connected Camera Workflow Cures Headaches Before They Start

We’ve just enhanced our Core News news production suite with exciting new features and functionality that give newsrooms added capabilities and address some common headaches.

By enhancing the Create™ ingest and editing utility in Core News, we’ve addressed a known pain point by creating a new connected camera workflow.

The remote upload-capable cameras offered by JVC, Panasonic and Sony have been a tremendous boon to news stations. Their ability to wirelessly upload files has enabled stations to cover remote and breaking news events like never before. However, there have been a few drawbacks.

Here’s a familiar scenario.

It’s 4 p.m. and your top reporter and camera operator have just covered a major news event an hour away from the station. They rave that this is a major story and the producers immediately decide to lead the 5 p.m. broadcast with the news and to air a tease ASAP in advance.

All that’s needed are theNew Connected Camera Workflow Cures Headaches Before They Start video files, which are already being ingested and stored in the newsroom’s FTP site as the reporter and camera operator race back.

This is when the headache begins.

Though the files arrived flawlessly, they are stored along with all the other files uploaded to the site during the day. The newsroom editing team has to identify the precise files to edit – and they have to do it quickly! The news starts at 5 p.m. on the dot and you know the competing stations in your market will lead with the story – running it after the first commercial break won’t cut it. Needing to find important files in a short time on a tight deadline occurs all too often in the newsroom and we’ve developed our new connected camera workflow to stop this headache before it starts.

Rather than storing all camera files in a single “bucket” as they’re uploaded to the FTP site, the upload methodology of our connected camera workflow stores each camera’s files in its own subfolder, all of which are then displayed in Oasis™, the newsroom’s asset management system. This creates an organizational hierarchy so newsroom staff can easily and quickly find specific assets from a particular shoot. Stations can further organize the files by the day of the week they were uploaded, which allows them to more precisely target their searches.

Another advantage of our Connected Camera Workflowis that our approach also preserves location information and other important meta data that’s typically lost when uploading a single file at a time.

We’re really pleased with the connected camera workflow, and we will be bringing you more efficiency-enhancing capabilities with Core News and other Bitcentral solutions. Stay tuned!

Visit us at NAB booth SU2610 to learn more.

About Bitcentral

Bitcentral provides solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our reliable and flexible product offerings represent our close partnering and intent listening to customers and world class support to back them up. Since 2000, we have gained a trusted partnership reputation with news and media customers, providing them with efficient media workflows that result in higher productivity – all while helping them increase their audience reach and competitive market position. We design forward looking, pragmatically designed and exceptionally reliable media solutions in news, master control and emerging-platform content.

We are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive sharing and listening to understand to stay close to our customers and partners as we solve real-world problems and an environment that attracts and retains the right talent. See how at www.es.bitcentral.com

Bitcentral Shows Latest Newsroom, Automation and Master Control Innovations at NAB 2017

Newport Beach, Calif. – April 10, 2017 – Bitcentral, a provider of digital and broadcast video workflow solutions, will demonstrate the latest features and capabilities of its award-winning portfolio of newsroom workflow, automation and master control automation solutions at the NAB 2017 tradeshow.

CORE:news™, Bitcentral’s flagship news production suite, offers several new enhancements, including:

  • Updates and enhancements to its Oasis™ user interface (UI) that enable easier searching for content across various stations through various device types such as mobile devices, which improve collaboration and maximize the usage and value of news assets and packages.
  • Support for Apple Mac-based workflows. Apple Final Cut Pro X and Adobe® Premiere® Pro CC will be demonstrated running on Mac systems with Precis™ Attach integration allowing seamless workflow by eliminating the need to switch between applications to edit in these leading NLE’s while leveraging CORE:news to achieve efficient and collaborative news production workflows.
  • Integrated connected camera workflows across the three main broadcast news camera platforms that support wireless file upload – JVC, Panasonic and Sony – thanks to the enhanced Create™ ingest and editing utility in CORE:news. File naming and sharing is demonstrated to simplify, speed up and automate file ingest operations.
  • NRCS integration between Precis and the Ross Inception system, which expands CORE:news already class leading level of integration.

Bitcentral will demonstrate the CORE:news integration with Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows and the Mac OS. Adobe Premiere Pro is a great option for editing in the field as exported files can be contributed back to the station through Bitcentral’s browser-based Contribution Portal. The pre-configured H.264 export options in Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe Media Encoder CC – both part of Adobe Creative Cloud® – allow editors to choose quality level and file size based on codec parameters. This determination is made based on the available time before a story goes to air; more time allows higher quality levels to be utilized. Bitcentral’s Contribution Portal and Precis Transcode features work in tandem to facilitate the seamless publishing of the story to the Precis playout’s newsroom computer system with no manual intervention needed inside the station.

Bitcentral’s Central Control™ master control solution has received several enhancements in the areas of syndication content processing and advanced Join In Progress (JIP) operation. Notably for NAB 2017, Central Control is now available in application-specific versions that offer superior price-performance while preserving Central Control’s rich functionality combined with targeted, intuitive operation based on simplified UIs. Complementing the “Full” version of Central Control are the following additions to the product lineup: “Light Edition,” “Ad Insertion with Graphics,” “Channel Branding” and “Studio,” which is optimized for live production.

Demonstrations of the company’s award-winning OTT solution Continuum™ will showcase the mixing of live production and automation-driven playlists with support for ad insertion – all vital capabilities as broadcasters continue to innovate with digital story first news production workflows. Additionally, the partnership with Brightcove is highlighted by Continuum sending a 24/7 linear feed to the cloud for adaptive bitrate transcoding, packaging and content distribution to mobile devices, showcasing apps that can be quickly customized to expand broadcasters’ brands to mobile and OTT audiences.

“These latest enhancements to our award-winning family of newsroom workflow and master control automation solutions are based on feedback straight from our customers, wNews Production suite, offers several new enhancementsho have deployed them in over 250 stations across the U.S. and power over 400 channels globally,” said Bitcentral CEO Fred Fourcher. “We are committed to providing solutions with the features, functionality and reliability that meet the real-world needs of newsroom. Complementing our cutting-edge products isthe industry-leading service and support we provide customers, because failure is not an option for news broadcasts – the show must go on!”

Please visit us at NAB 2017 – booth # SU2610 – in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 24-27, to learn more about our solutions.

 

About Bitcentral

Bitcentral provides solutions that maximize the value of media workflows. Our reliable and flexible product offerings represent our close partnering and intent listening to customers and world class support to back them up. Since 2000, we have gained a trusted partnership reputation with news and media customers, providing them with efficient media workflows that result in higher productivity – all while helping them increase their audience reach and competitive market position. We design forward looking, pragmatically designed and exceptionally reliable media solutions in news, master control and emerging-platform content.

We are dedicated to creating a culture of proactive sharing and listening to understand to stay close to our customers and partners as we solve real-world problems and an environment that attracts and retains the right talent. See how at www.es.bitcentral.com

 

EOL Notification: Notice of Firefox Browser Support Issue

Firefox is dropping NPAPI support in their browsers starting March 7, 2017 according to their support announcements.  This will affect all Bitcentral products that use Java and Silverlight browser applets.  Those products are:

  • CORE:news
  • CORE:select
  • Precis
  • Oasis
  • ME/EME

If any of your Station users are using a Firefox browser to access any of Bitcentral’s suite of products please make sure those Firefox browsers are set to NOT-AUTO-UPDATE their currently installed Firefox browser. Until we have better understanding for what is to come in the newest release most of our testing has been with the beta version for the new release 52 which we were able to enable the plugins.  But, for future releases this function will not be available i.e. Version 53. This is why we are sending out this notification now as a preemptive approach to prevent any downtime.  Instructions on how to enable plugins are outlined below.

Bitcentral’s Action Plan:

Bitcentral will be releasing a new client App for use in all CORE:news, CORE:select and all stand-alone products, Precis, Oasis and ME/EME that will ensure continued support for the required web page applets to run.  This new Bitcentral client App will be used to run all of Bitcentral browser based system user interfaces.  The new client App will have:

  • No URL browser bar
  • No forward/back buttons
  • The new Bitcentral provided client App will come with all the plugins required to run all Bitcentral we pages.
  • Windows and Mac compatible

The Station users can still install the browser client of their choice for other internet uses but the Bitcentral client cannot be used as an internet browser interface going forward, only CORE applications will show up in the interface.

Until our dedicated client is released we do however have other alternatives. Firefox has an Extended Support Release version for its browser. This release will allow all the security benefits of the software and legacy functionalities of previous versions of the web browser. Please read links below for more details regarding how to’s for downloading ESR and disabling auto updates.

REFERENCES AND LINKS

Enabling NPAPI plugins in Firefox 52

  1. Type about:config in the browser’s address bar.
  1. Select I accept the risk!
  2. Right click anywhere on the white portion of the page, select new, Boolean. The preference name is:plugin.load_flash_only and this should be set to false.
  1. Restart the browser.
  2. Test accessing Silverlight, Java, or any other NPAPI driven content.
  3. Contact Bitcentral Support with any questions!

NEWS RELEASE: Bitcentral Announces WOFL Station Goes Live With Core:news™

Bitcentral, Inc., a provider of digital and broadcast video workflow solutions, today announced the successful launch of Orlando, FL station WOFL on its news production suite, CORE:news with Adobe Premiere. FOX-owned WOFL now has a complete news production, media management, collaboration and archiving solution in CORE:news. #1 in its market. FOX Television Stations are standardizing on Bitcentral’s CORE:news solution. This existing Oasis-only customer is now on Bitcentral’s latest solution. WOFL is hoping to align themselves with rest of FOX group on system and participate in group sharing with other sites.

CORE:news is an easy-to-use modular news production platform that combines content discovery, capture, editing, playout, publishing, collaboration, asset management and archiving into a single unified workflow. Bitcentral extends its congratulations and appreciation to the staff of WOFL for their partnership throughout the implementation process and looks forward to being a valued partner moving forward.

Newsroom Computer Systems — Are We There Yet?

With the technology and business models associated with the newsroom changing and evolving monthly, you can hardly be faulted for wondering where it’s all heading next. There are three primary elements that are adding to these changes: the need to deliver news product to a variety of platforms, not just the big screen; consolidation in station ownership, which is creating new opportunities to leverage news resources group-wide; and IP connectivity that makes it possible to put more TV reporters on the street.1

Once upon a time, newsrooms created newscasts exclusively for air; but that’s in the past. Audiences are demanding their news on mobile devices, laptops, tablets, etc. Social media is also driving demand for news – so if you’re still preoccupied with your on-air newscast, you’re about to go the way of the dinosaur.

Chances are, though, that you’re looking to move forward and evolve. But how can we when the technology we’ve been using is becoming more outdated every day? And what about all that new tech that only does bits and pieces, forcing us to use various platforms with various log-in pages?

“Serving content across social media and OTT is a major challenge facing today’s TV newsrooms, and adding personnel is usually not an option to address the larger workload,” said Fred Fourcher, Bitcentral CEO.

The answer newsroom computer systems (NRCS) vendors have adopted is to put the story — rather than a newscast rundown — at the center of the process. As journalists begin creating news, they can access the elements they need —scripts, video clips and graphics — seamlessly from within the NRCS user interface and build stories for different delivery platforms without the hassle and confusion.1

Bitcentral is serving up the lion’s share of the solution with the various tools. Its CORE:news provides news production and master control and automation solutions that facilitate simplified broadcast and digital media workflows. Create is a single interface featuring a robust story-based workflow from video capture and encoding to editing, playout, publishing and archive.  It publishes content to wherever your customers want to see it; from TV to web to mobile and OTT.

“Multiplatform production, or what some people call a story-centric workflow, is absolutely one of the hottest areas in newsroom computer systems right now,” says Jason Smith, director of product design for AP’s ENPS.

“This is bleeding-edge tech that we’re making sure is constantly evolving. Rest on your laurels and the competition will surge past you”, Fourcher observes. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback that suggests we’re doing the right thing. A lot of happy clients who let us know how much easier we’ve made their jobs. They love the tools we offer.”

Broadcasters are also increasingly asking NRCS vendors to grow the functions of their newsroom systems to the street where their reporters are gathering news.

 Again, Bitcentral comes to the forefront of this technology with its Oasis platform. Oasis allows you to share and repurpose stories from anywhere with anyone. It allows field journalists to pull video to and from Oasis to finish a package and they can feed video without satellite or microwave trucks. If you’re working in house, it allows you to discover valuable stories from other facilities and partners.

 Another such tool is Bitcentral’s Precis; it’s a full playout solution that integrates seamlessly into your workflow, driving play-to-air servers and ingest encoding ultimately taking rundowns to air. Precis creates a seamless production for everyone, allowing writers, producers and directors to quickly attach items to stories in rundowns, access all video sources (live and non-live) as well as manage publishing quickly – often in real time.

1http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/93559/newsroom-systems-adapt-to-new-necessities

2http://www.enps.com/press_releases/501/ap_enps_tapped_for_gannett_broadcasting_newsroom_system_upgrade

3https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-newsroom-computer-systems-NRCS-globally