October 2011

TSG to Exhibit at Content & Communications World

The Systems Group is proud to announce that we are returning to Content and Communications World (CCW) hosted in the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY for our third consecutive year.  CCW, which is inclusive of HD World, 3D World and SATCON, features all segments of the media technology and communication industries.  Please visit our booth, # 1246 to learn more about our best in class consultation, project management and advanced systems integration services.  We will be exhibiting October 12th – 13th and look forward to seeing you there!

July 2011

TSG Featured in July’s BE Magazine Facility Showcase

TSG’s innovative design on the 53’ Double Expando mobile unit for Univision Miami was featured in this months’ BE Magazine.  Click Here to see the full article entitled Creative PACKAGING.

July 2011

TSG West Coast Project Office Retained for Workflow Analysis

TSG engineering consultants have been retained by an undisclosed client to provide workflow analysis, networking architecture and multisite support planning services.

June 2011

ABC Network Selects TSG for Critical Disaster Recovery Facility

TSG was recently selected by ABC Network to integrate their new disaster recovery facilities in California. The new facility will back up the East, Central, and West Coast broadcast feeds.  The facility will also contain media prep and announcer facilities at the ABC Prospect television lot. The system will be operational in December of 2011.

June 2011

NeuLion Brings in TSG’s Expertise for Consultation and Execution of a Number of Enhancement Projects

TSG is providing technology consultation and integration services to NeuLion as they undertake a number of infrastructure and operations enhancement projects. These projects are preparing NeuLion for broadcast quality game feed production and highlights work allowing them to deploy new services to nearly all of the US sports leagues’ online subscription services. This is in addition to streamlining their international services into a more robust monitoring & control environment to support substantial growth and flexible turnaround as new services and clients are added.

May 2011

In Memoriam

TSG would like to express our sincerest condolences to the family of Andy Washnik of Corpricom Photography.  Andy was not only TSG’s official facility photographer, but a great man and a great friend to many of the people on our staff.  His passing is truly tragic and he will be greatly missed by the many people whose lives he touched.  We are grateful to have had him as part of our TSG family and for his artistic presence and enthusiasm for both his and our work.  It seems appropriate that his final shoot for us was chosen to be featured in the July issue of BE magazine.  We are honored to have his fantastic photographs laced throughout our website and as a representation of our company’s work. 

April 2011

WJLA Returns to TSG for HD Upgrades

TSG is working with WJLA on the third and final phase of their HD upgrade plan.  Having integrated WJLA NewsChannel 8 in 2002, TSG was the natural choice for this critical phase.

TSG is tasked with upgrading the facility multi-viewers using Evertz MVP, installing a new Ross Video Vision production switcher, building a new in-house QAM cable headend centered around Contemporary Research’s QMOD-SDI modulators, and upgrading plant signal processing, master control switching and transmission with a range of products from Harris Corp. The team expects another series of strategically planned cut-ins this summer deploying new technology without interruptions to the station’s operations.

April 2011

TSG to Design a New Home for KCET

TSG has been retained by KCET Television to oversee all technical consulting, planning and integration efforts, as well as contribute to all broadcast architectural development for the new television station and production facility currently planned at The Point in Hollywood. The facility design will support optimized workflow and expanded facility networking.  KCET plans to be on air from their new facility in March of 2012. 

April 2011

C-SPAN brings in TSG to deploy their Master Plan

The Systems Group has been appointed by C-SPAN Networks to oversee all technical planning and integration efforts for the rebuild of Production Control Room One.
The current project includes the complete rebuild of the PCR with new consoles and equipment including four SK-HD 1000 Hitachi cameras with Fujinon lenses, a new LCD monitor wall and a Wheatstone DK 32-32 audio console.
TSG’s Project Planning team was brought on by C-SPAN at a very early stage in the process, effectively translating their Network Master Plan vision into a robust and expandable core facility design inclusive of all Production Control Rooms, four Master Control Channels and the complete renovation of their new central equipment center. 

April 2011

ABC Looks to TSG for News Automation

TSG recently completed the KTRK news automation system installation in Houston, Texas.  This critical system expansion provides KTRK with future growth capacity and improved news operations workflow. 

April 2011

TSG to Exhibit at NAB

The Systems Group will once again be exhibiting at their booth at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center April 9 - 14..  NAB is not only one of the largest trade shows of our industry, but one of the largest in Las Vegas. We invite you to visit our booth, #N808, and ask us about our new service offerings in consultation services, ongoing project support, mobile unit design and implementation, advanced facilities planning and how the implementation TSG AXIS helps us to be a world wide entity. 

If you don’t already have a pass, please feel free to use our VIP code to get your FREE* exhibits only pass:  LV0939
*Note:  a $20 processing fee may apply to all submissions after April 7, 2011

We look forward to seeing you there! 

April 2011

Xinhua News Agency Up and Running

The Systems Group has completed the broadcast and A/V systems design and integration of Xinhua’s new NYC News Bureau Facility located at 1540 Broadway, in the Times Square area of New York City.

March 2011

Two BE Excellence Awards for TSG!

TSG Scores two 1st place 2011 Annual Broadcast Engineering Excellence Awards!
The Systems Group has been voted best in class in the 2011 BE Excellence Awards for their engineering innovation and project management in the categories of:
 
• Post & Network Production Facilities:  Madison Square Garden Network
• New Studio Technology – HD:  ABC’s Central Switching Center

March 2011

TSG Completes State of the Art Mobile Unit for Univision

The Systems Group has completed the design and build of a new 1080i 29.9fps and 1080p 24fps production ready, HD Mobile Production Unit for Univision Network.  TSG implemented some innovative resources and ideas to give that has lead the description of this mobile unit to be “spacious” - a word that is not typically associated with a Mobile Production Unit. 

March 2011

The System Group & Siemens IT Solutions and Services are… The Converged Technologists

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas from April 10-14, visitors can see the consolidation and transition of a major broadcast operation into a single, integrated facility.  Siemens IT Solutions and Services, North America and The Systems Group, New Jersey (TSG) are jointly presenting a model project delivered to bridge the gap between traditional broadcast consulting and IT systems solutions at Corus Entertainment, one of Canada’s most successful integrated media and entertainment companies. Siemens IT Solutions and Services implemented the overall media management and workflow solution in the Corus facility and The Systems Group utilized their vast experience in large scale project management, design and implementation.  The project involved consolidating more than 10 physically separate sites in the Toronto area and more than 1,100 Corus employees into Corus Quay, a technologically and architecturally advanced broadcast and production facility located on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Thanks to this innovative approach, Corus remains at the forefront of technology to meet dynamic consumer tastes and to be as “green” as possible in its environmental impact.  They now have a reliable, available, and scalable IT infrastructure that meets its sophisticated IT and broadcast needs both now and well into the future.

“We built our facility to support not just what we do today, but also what we might do tomorrow. Our IP infrastructure provides plenty of headroom for growth in an IP-driven world”, says Scott Dyer, Executive Vice President, Shared Services and Chief Technology Officer, Corus Entertainment Inc.  Chris Mehos, President The System Group adds,  “The Success of the Corus implementation is an example of embracing the power of traditional IT infrastructure to enable additional business value for the management & delivery of content. Siemens IT Solutions and Services brings a depth of services complementary to our own, allowing us to offer North American broadcasters a total system solution inclusive of post project managed services.”

Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Inc., North America and TSG have signed a teaming agreement to leverage their combined expertise toward bridging the gap between traditional broadcast consulting and IT systems solutions.  They will combine best of breed broadcast and IT engineering resources to help clients optimize their content management and distribution systems for high quality consumer delivery anytime, anywhere. Broadcast and publishing providers throughout North America are looking for new ways to streamline workflow, leverage rapidly advancing commodity software and hardware tools, and in many cases are considering the type of outsourced services that have been commonplace in corporate IT for years.

“In this rapidly changing integrated media environment, clients need innovative thought leadership regarding broadcast architecture to improve internal workflows, speed content integration and allow efficient, content distribution whenever and wherever there is consumer demand,”  Marcos Gonzalez-Flower, Head Global Media Consulting at Siemens IT Solutions and Services,  “The Systems Group has designed and built some of the most advanced facilities in North America bringing deep knowledge over a wide range of applications regarding the implementation of functional workflow models. Working together, we can provide not only the implementation of advanced solutions, but a host of managed services post project”. 

Please visit The Systems Group and Siemens IT Solutions and Services at booth N808 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian-based media and entertainment company. Corus is a market leader in specialty television and radio with additional assets in pay television, television broadcasting, children’s book publishing and children’s animation. The Company’s multimedia entertainment brands include YTV, Treehouse, Nickelodeon (Canada), W Network, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network (Canada), CosmoTV, Sundance Channel (Canada), Movie Central, HBO Canada, Nelvana, Kids Can Press and radio stations including CKNW AM 980, 99.3 The FOX, Country 105, 630 CHED, Q107 and 102.1 the Edge. Corus creates engaging branded entertainment experiences for its audiences across multiple platforms. A publicly traded company, Corus is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (CJR.B). Experience Corus on the web at http://www.corusent.com
Siemens IT Solutions and Services is a European based premium player providing state-of-the-art IT solutions and delivering outsourcing services with global reach. Within the IT service chain, the portfolio of Siemens IT Solutions and Services ranges from consulting, software deployment and system integration to the comprehensive management of IT infrastructures. Through profound industry know-how and beneficial innovations, the business technologists at Siemens IT Solutions and Services enable customers to transform their business processes on an ongoing basis. With a workforce of more than 32,000 employees Siemens IT Solutions and Services achieved revenues of some 4.2 billion euro in fiscal 2010, which ended on September 30, – over 75 percent of these revenues came from outside of Siemens. http://www.usa.siemens.com/it-solutions.
For more information, please visit:  http://www.usa.siemens.com/it-solutions.
or contact.
Shelley Hansen, VP, Marketing & Communications
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Tel.: (508) 878-7310
Astrid Heinz, Global Communications
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Tel.: +49 (89) 636-52749

About The Systems Group
The Systems Group (TSG) is a leading, North American, independent broadcast systems consulting and project management firm providing mission critical services, strategic, technical, and operational, to global broadcasters and rich media related industries for 20 years. TSG provides consulting, design, engineering, integration, and deployment of hardware and software solutions as well as coordinated physical facilities infrastructure planning.

For more information, please visit: http://www.tsg-hoboken.com
or contact Chris Mehos at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 201.795.4672

February 2011

TSG Selected for NBA Integration

NBA has engaged TSG to integrate their new Network Operations Center scheduled for September 2011 completion. The new facility will include a 3G infrastructure deployment, implementation of advanced content monitoring, ingest logging and archiving. Four new coordination rooms for rebranding of live and archived events internationally are planned. 

February 2011

The Systems Group Completes Madison Square Garden Media Project

The Systems Group has completed the HD design and implementation of Madison Square Garden’s first-class, high-definition, state-of-the-art network transformation; moving and upgrading their television facilities from Madison Square Garden arena to 11 Pennsylvania Plaza.

October, 2010

TSG Exhibits at CCW

The Systems Group is proud to announce our booth at Content & Communications World (CCW) hosted in the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY.  CCW a.k.a. HD World, 3D World or SATCON features all segments of the media technology and communication industries. We invite you to visit our booth, # 947, and ask us about our new service offerings in experiential media technologies, ongoing project support as well as documentation hosting.  We will be exhibiting October 13th – 14th and look forward to seeing you there!

July 2010

TSG Signs Northwestern University in Qatar Consultancy

The Systems Group (TSG) of Hoboken New Jersey has been retained by the Qatar Foundation and Qatar Petroleum to oversee all technical planning and integration efforts, as well as all broadcast architectural development for the new Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) educational production facility which is being built to support classes by winter of 2010/2011 in Doha, Qatar. NU-Q is providing curriculae in journalism, media production, and mass communications as part of Qatar Foundation’s Education City campus in Doha and this facility will allow the university to fulfill it’s pledge to advanced learning in the region with world class teaching facilities and media tools. The new facility will house television and film studios (featuring Red camera technology), an electronic journalism core (featuring Gallery Sienna newsroom automation), and a multi-room post production facility (featuring Apple X-SAN and FinalCutServer technologies) tailored to NU-Q educational efforts, and TSG’s Project Planning group has been involved since early on in the effort to translate the NU-Q vision into a robust and expandable core facility.

May 2010

The TSG Consulting Group to Coach the NBA to Successful Technology Systems Relocation and Upgrade

TSG’s Consulting Group has been retained by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to guide them in technology decision making, system visualization, and budget definition necessary to enable TSG to produce build-to documentation and a solid implementation plan for their upcoming facility relocation and upgrade project. 

The TSG team will also serve as a technical translator and infrastructure requirements analyst for the project architect, HLW, and NBA design team in designing the building infrastructure that will be needed to support the NBA’s technical operations well into the future.  Key design challenges are the need for current facilities to remain operational during the course of the migration, the migration of years (aka. petabytes) of NBA historic archive media, and the integration of NBA engineering’s custom developed software throughout the new facility to maintain the high level of media access, automated workflows, and system monitoring and control that NBA engineering and operations personnel are accustomed to.

TSG plans to address these challenges by working closely with NBA Engineering and Operations to assess current work processes and analyze available emerging technologies.  Once this process is complete, the team will establish and illustrate the workflows that are to be designed for in the new facility. Throughout the course of design, architectural requirements and design targets will be communicated directly to the architectural design team.  Concurrently, TSG will be working with the NBA team to develop a palatable budget for all broadcast system technology and integration costs that maximizes re-use from the existing technical plant while addressing future expansion plans. 

Ultimately, TSG will produce and submit to the NBA a comprehensive set of broadcast industry standard system documents that will define the systems and implementation requirements for a smooth and successful relocation to their new home.

April 2010

Scott G. Griffin’s Broadcast Engineering Webinar: “Managing Video Workflows in an IT-Based Environment” Available On-Demand

Broadcast Engineering reached out to Scott G. Griffin, Principal and VP, Engineering and Technology to conduct a webinar entitled “Managing Video Workflows in an IT-based Environment” which was sponsored by Telestream and was TSG’s first experience conducting a live webinars.

Scott said “TSG’s Engineering and Planning groups have been on the front lines of IT-based integration design for ten years.  The opportunity to share some of our experience with industry players who are planning their own facility upgrades and expansion projects in an interactive forum was as much of a learning experience for our group as the attendees. We were able to hear firsthand about the current concerns and experiences our peers are dealing with and, although my presentation was generic, I think it served as a solid foundation for the more poignant questions by the forum.”

In the webinar, Scott discusses that, from the smallest post house to the largest network origination center, the core operations of any modern media facility are becoming more and more dependent upon IT architectures. The 99.999 percent uptime of a broadcast environment is still mission critical, and the omnipresence of IT topologies in the control subsystems, media file movement and, ultimately, in fully automated file-based operations require thoughtful consideration as to applicability, cost and support infrastructure. The webinar addresses these considerations, and supports your project planning efforts for the modern media operations environment

The webinar is currently available on demand at: BE Webinar On -Demand

March 2010

Preview TSG's Feature in SVG's Spring Technology Journal

It’s all about the game for The Systems Group – yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s.

From last minute’s instant replay to the grainy footage of the first televised sporting event in 1939, capturing and holding onto the moment is critical.  TSG is well versed in the power and flexibility of modern storage systems, taking advantage of features such as file based workflows and the harnessing of metadata.  Our design team ensures that incoming content, as well as archival material ingested as digital files, is easily accessed, intuitively organized, and preserved for future viewing generations.

Today’s viewers are looking for broadcasters to not only provide them with nuanced close-ups and viewpoints not possible from the seats but with a constant stream of companion information that brings added value to the sports broadcast.  Production and editing teams need to make sure that massive quantities of real-time and archived video, audio, and data files can be quickly turned around by a collaborative workflow into quality content that engages the viewer.  TSG has real-world insight into the strengths and limitations of today’s systems.  Our teams have faced the challenges of designing and integrating some of the most complex sports broadcasting facilities in the industry and are ready to use that experience to your advantage.

Planning for tomorrow’s game is an integral part of TSG’s systems design and we consider scalability and modularity to be the key to accommodating future growth as well as targeting the use and risks associated with evolving technologies.  Broadcasters will be tasked with delivering local content with a global reach while facing challenges such as competition for broadband QoS, polluting of white space, maintenance of reliable IP network infrastructure, astronomically increased storage demands, as well as decisions about how to best utilize emerging technologies such as 3G qualified infrastructure, personal video monitoring, 3D technologies including 3D HD mobile trucks, digital signage and narrowcast networks, digital wireless cameras transmitting HD on license-free spectrum, and IPTV and on-demand internet broadcasting.  All this with a watchful eye out for some form of ROI strategy.

February 2010

TSG's West Coast Office Supports Canada’s Corus Entertainment with Virtualized Project Collaboration Tools

TSG was awarded the design and build of Corus Entertainment (Corus)’s broadcast facilities located in their new headquarters on the waterfront of Toronto. In spring 2010, Corus - one of Canada’s most successful integrated media and entertainment companies - will be consolidating its 15 physical locations in Toronto into a single, purpose-built facility that will house all of Corus’ Toronto operations, including production and origination of more than 30 broadcast signals. This move affords Corus the opportunity to examine its current operations and construct a new broadcast operation with an eye to the changing digital media landscape.

TSG shares Corus’ core values of knowledge, innovation, initiative, teamwork, and accountability.  This compatibility of corporate cultures made the Corus project team the perfect choice to pilot TSG’s AXIS.  TSG AXIS is being developed and implemented internally by TSG Engineering/IT specifically for the demands of SI work.  It enables the centralization of project drawings, punch lists, project timelines, and multiple areas of project reporting in a secure virtual project environment that encourages collaboration among team members and efficiency in project processes.

Frank Geraty, Executive Project Manager on the Corus project said, “The Corus project exemplifies the challenges of maximizing project resources.  Engineering resources managed out of TSG’s west coast office; asset management and integration resources located on-site in Canada; and fabrication and project operations out of the Hoboken, NJ headquarters all seamlessly interact in real-time through AXIS.”

The Systems Group is committed to the highly collaborative, mobile, and virtualized work style required to meet the needs of our international and domestic systems integration project environments.  Virtualizing critical project data enables our clients, partners, and staff to quickly access and analyze critical project information and documents without being limited by geographic location or time-of-day.

The Systems Group’s innovative project environment coupled with our technical expertise will enable TSG to quickly deliver to Corus Entertainment a consistent, integrated solution with the flexibility and scalability needed to take full advantage of their anticipated future growth. 

Jan 2010

MLB Network’s HDTV Integration Relied Heavily on TSG’s Advanced Equipment Schedule Management

When The Systems Group began working on MLB’s HDTV facility, the network was planning on making its permanent home in New York City, and had announced plans to work with Vornado Realty Trust to create a $435 million, 21-story headquarters in Harlem by mid-2010, with Secaucus as a temporary solution.  When the Vornado project lost its funding, MLBN decided that its temporary solution had become its long-term solution and that its entire system would be housed in the former home of MSNBC, in Secaucus, N.J.  – a facility designed and built by TSG in 1996.

TSG responded quickly to this development with an intensive equipment schedule management and value engineering effort.  The original plan, initiated two years ago, was to create a hybrid SD/HD plant with live games shot in the 16:9 aspect ratio. That plan morphed into a 720p HD infrastructure managed by an NVISION 576 x 1040 router, Miran¬da Kaleido-X multiviewer, a Grass Valley storage area network (SAN), Evertz modular equipment, an Omneon Spectrum server and a Pro-Bel Morpheus automation system.  A multilayered, file-based infrastructure was designed that built on the facility’s circa 1996 state-of-the-art digital pro¬duction environment.

As a result, Belinda Binkley, Director of TSG’s Project Operations and Project Manager for the MLB project, was faced with controlling a massive amount of equipment schedule modifications resulting in over 350 change orders representing design changes ranging from redesign and value engineering efforts to maximizing the integration of customer-furnished equipment into the facility. 

Belinda turned to TSG’s internally-developed Tracker© software which provided rigorous control of project capital through asset management.  Tracker© enabled TSG to minimize the impact of revisions to the project timeline and budgets through its dynamic engineering interface and direct integration with TSG’s procurement system.  Using this tool, TSG was able to go beyond just making changes to the base equipment schedule and forecast the impact of potential changes on existing project budgets; develop multiple change order scenarios simultaneously; move items between unapproved change orders; track change and edit histories for each equipment line; see real-time purchasing status for all equipment lines; and, critical on such a fast-track project, directly interface with TSG’s project and accounting system, MS Dynamics SL for up-to-the-minute procurement management.

At the time of launch, the MLBN equipment schedule represented the over 13,000 pieces of equipment installed in the facility.  The new direction, coupled with emerging technologies, scope expansion, installation location changes, and model number revisions required thousands of edits to the base equipment schedule to ensure engineering and vendor updates were quickly communicated to and acted upon by the project team.  TSG’s extensive experience and sophisticated equipment management tools ensured that MLBN’s new home was a homerun.