GlobeCast has completed a significant deal with leading Bollywood television network B4U to provide playout and media management services for eight of its worldwide channels. The five-year deal also includes the initial ingest and archive of 22,500 hours of content as well as the implementation of a fully tapeless workflow.


GlobeCast’s solution will allow B4U to ingest and deliver content made in India to a library in GlobeCast’s central London facility. From there, the broadcaster can remotely access and edit the content from its own facility for playout to the UK, USA, India, Malaysia and the Middle East — all without the use of tapes and its associated cost and timing. The initial stage of the project has involved ingest of 22,500 hours of content in high-quality master format (30Mbit/s) for storage at GlobeCast’s central London facility. Using subsidiary NETIA’s Manreo software, GlobeCast will host a Media Asset Management system which will allow B4U to remotely search, view and organise the content. When ready for playout, the content will be transcoded and supplied to GlobeCast’s playout automation system automatically.

Playout for the eight channels is already live from GlobeCast’s central London facility on and includes subtitling in English, Malay and Arabic live at the point of playout, automatic audio level control, as well as logo insertions and graphics. In order to complete the tapeless workflow, GlobeCast has provided B4U with the equipment and connectivity for a remote ingest site in India as well as an edit suite at B4U’s offices in North London. Both sites will eventually be connected to GlobeCast’s worldwide fibre network.