[SatNews] Omneon Inc. today announced that Electronic Media Network Limited (M-Net), South Africa's first private subscription television service, is expanding its Omneon installation to include two Spectrum(TM) media server systems and a MediaGrid(TM) active storage system. Integrated into M-Net's Johannesburg facility by Omneon's local partner and systems integrator Inala Broadcast, the resulting Omneon media storage and processing platform will support playout of M-Net's short-form content, which is broadcast to 3.6 million subscribers in 41 countries across Africa.

"The highly scalable architecture of Omneon systems has allowed us to expand our operations smoothly while improving the overall efficiency of our file-based workflow," said Manny Coelho, head of media services at M-Net. "With the Omneon platform underpinning our operations, we're poised to realize even greater flexibility in our management and delivery of content to M-Net customers."

Content is ingested onto M-Net's existing Omneon Spectrum media server systems and stored onto a 216-TB Omneon MediaGrid system, the first such system installed in South Africa. Harris(R) D-Series(TM) automation moves content for M-Net's originated channels to the new Spectrum server for playout as required.

"When M-Net first created its digital archives, the broadcaster used the Omneon Spectrum media server to enable reliable ingest of more than 200,000 hours of content," said Geoff Stedman, senior vice president, marketing and business development at Omneon. "That groundbreaking project represented the largest such installation in Africa. Now, as M-Net extends our digital media workflow to accommodate playout, it has raised the bar once again, taking online an Omneon platform that supports the entire broadcast chain."