Cologne Broadcasting Center

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220 221TELE-satel lite International The Worlds Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 12-01/2012 www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com 12-01/2012 TELE-satel lite International The Worlds Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine

Zero Tape Full HD

allprogrammingcontentstoredasles

hugele-basedelectronicarchive

globalcontentdistribution

productionandinternationalplayout

oflivecoverageofGermanBundesliga

soccermatches

fullyequippedforHDTV

This is what 4.6 m look like.Were talking about the diameterof one of CBCs uplink antennasin the new Cologne BroadcastingCenter.

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Cologne

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The new CologneBroadcastingCenter in Germany

Achim Pauly is the head of Communication & Marketing at CBC. Here

he is seen right at the heart of CBC, overlooking the inner courtyard ofthe former exhibition halls on the Rhine river.

CBC has recently launched one the most modern broadcasting

centers worldwide. It goes without saying that such a major pro-

ject was not put into operation over night, but rather was a step-

by-step process spanning several months. In mid-2010 the rst

production units were able to move to the new center, we learn

from Achim Pauly, head of Communication & Marketing at CBC.

Today, all companies and networks of German media enter-

prise RTL Deutschland operate from the new CBC, which is lo-

cated in premises directly on the banks of the Rhine river. What

formerly used to be exhibition halls has turned into a top-notch

and one of the leading media and broadcasting centers in the

world, even though youd be hard pressed to notice that right

away, with historic facades meticulously preserved.

Within the RTL media group CBC is in charge of production,

post-production, technology, IT and content distribution. CBC

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All signals from RTL mediagroup are beamed to thesatellites from this spot.These uplink antennas arelocated at CBC in Cologneright on the banks of theRhine river.

was responsible for planning and imple-

menting all structures and processes of

the new broadcasting center in relation

to production, broadcasting and IT, and

now runs the operations.

RTL media group is a leading media

corporation whose portfolio consists of

fully-owned free TV channels RTL Tel-

evision, VOX and n-tv, as well as share-

holdings in RTL II and SUPER RTL and

pay TV channels RTL Crime, Passion

and RTL Living.Mido Fayad heads the broadcasting

department and has some in-depth in-

formation: Here in Cologne our broad-

casting engineers and technicians look

after the RTL, VOX and Super RTL net-

works for Germany, Austria and Swit-

zerland, as well as the special interest

channels RTL Crime, RTL Living and

Passion. In addition, we distribute the

n-tv news channel from here. Our sec-

ond location in Munich/Grnwald takes

care of RTL II for Germany, Austria and

Switzerland.

CBC is also the broadcasting center of

choice for a number of content provid-

ers outside the RTL media group, such

as Channel 21, for example, whose pro-

gram is also distributed via CBC.

Not only is CBC in charge o f the tech-

nical aspects of broadcasting and play-

out, but has turned into an full-service

provider. According to Fayad, the new

broadcasting center features four fully-

edged studios, a range of sets for TV

productions, as well as in excess of 70post-production units. We also produce

German Bundesliga live coverage for

distribution outside Germany. On behalf

of Sportcast we offer complete match

coverage and produce highlight seg-

ments in foreign languages. CBC is live

on air on all 34 match days of the year

and distributes Bundesliga broadcasts

to more than 180 countries around the

globe.

Project manager Wilfried Klinke steps

in to add that all technology used is fully

HDTV compatible. RTL, VOX and RTL

II are offering their channels in HDTV

at this point, says Klinke. Naturally,

each network or channel decides inde-

pendently whether or not to of fer HDTV.

We even have experience with 3D pro-

ductions, Wilfried Klinke hastens to

add, providing further proof of CBCs

technical capabilities.

Originally, CBC was an offspring of

the technical department of the VOX

channel, which in its early days was

positioned as in infotainment channelwithin the RTL media group and thus

was equipped with state-of-the-art pro-

duction and broadcasting equipment

right from the start. CBC employees

Wilfried Klinke and Mido Fayad have

been with the business from those early

days. When the VOX technical depart-

ment became CBC in 1994 they were

two specialists among 50. These days

CBC has a staff of 500, 40 of which are

in charge of broadcasting, which at CBC

is called distribution. A much larger

share of employees is needed for con-

tribution, which basically means con-

tent production.

One of the high points at CBC is its

electronic archive. All broadcasts of

RTL media group channels are saved in

le format, Mido Fayad explains while

leading us to a high-security area of

the building which houses the so-called

Contentbank, a term CBC uses for its

enormous le-based archiving system.

9 petabyte of storage capacity are re-

quired to hold more than 160,000 hours

of content. Burnt onto CDs and stapled

one on top of the other you would end

up with a 16 km high pile of CDs; and

thats without jewel cases!

Looking at this impressive electronic

archive a question that comes to mind

is availability of stored content from

If you lookbetween the twohuge antennas youare able to catch aglimpse of CologneCathedral, thecitys unmistakablelandmark sight.Media journalistLuo Shigang fromShenzhen (China) isup on the roof andputs the sheer sizeof the antennas intoperspective.


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226 TELE-satel lite International The Worlds Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 12-01/2012 www.TELE-satellite.com

the early days of RTL channels. We did

have digital recordings, explains pro-

ject manager Wilfried Klinke, but back

then they were stored on video tapes.

Those tapes had been archived in an

area covering more than 2,000 square

meters and using complex air-condi-

tioning systems. In the course of sev-

eral months we converted that data into

les and fed them into our electronic

archive. Achim Pauly adds that at CBC

we have a totally tape-less workow,with all processes being le-based.

CBC has extended its t ape-less work-

ow even beyond its own premises by

setting up a network linking major Ger-

man cities, London and New York for

exchanging content contributions. This

network is based on a bre-optic back-

bone and can be used to hook up studi-

os live on air via video-over-IP. For live

coverage from places with no local stu-

dios CBC runs a eet of SNG vehicles.

Susanne Jumpelt, head of Broadcast-

ing Sales & Marketing, has all the de-

tails: Our SNG vehicles are located in

Berlin, Munich and Moscow, as well as

two in Colgone. This strategic position-

ing allows quick access to almost all

places in Germany and Europe.

If you look up to the roof of the multi-

storey car park next to the CBC prem-

ises an impressive antenna farm soars

high into the sky. Of a total of 37 anten-

nas a whopping ve feature diameters

of 4.6 m and are all used for signal up-

link. Mido Fayad, head of the broadcast-

ing department, explains that four of

these giants are in permanent use, with

three antennas pointing to ASTRA 19.2E

and one to EUTELSAT 9E. The fth 4.6

m antenna serves as back-up.

So what happens if a heavy down-

pour moves through Cologne and reli-

able signal uplink may be compromised

due to the weather? Will all channels of

RTL media group go blank for satelliteviewers? No way, because the weather

is under constant observation here at

CBC and as soon as a thunderstorm

approaches we immediately switch the

uplink from Cologne to our outlet in

Grnwald near Munich. Their antennas

take over all uplink tasks within a mat-

ter of split seconds.

1. Project manager Wilfried Klinke in theantenna operating room. He reveals thathes been a loyal TELE-satellite reader fromday one in 1981.

2. One of the workstations in the mainswitching room. This is where satelliteantennas are controlled using CBCsin-house PilotSat software.


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13 broadcast playouts in Cologneand the Network Operation Center.60 distribution channels aremonitored and controlled in thisNOC.[Photo: CBC/Dirk Schwarz]


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Viewers will hardly notice anything

other than possibly some interference

for tenths of a second, during which

satellite receivers need to re-sync. This

way we are able to achieve extremely

high reliability and 99.999% signal

uplink to the satellite. The summer

months are particularly prone to fre-

quent thunderstorms which result in

numerous uplink shifts between Munich

and Cologne. We have noticed in re-

cent years that severe weather events

are increasing, Mido Fayad notes.

Yet, broadcasting reliability does not

1. Maicel Pancke is one of thebroadcasting engineers in the NOC.

2. Susanne Jumpelt (centre) is the headof Broadcasting Sales & Marketing.Apart from Teleport services she offersCBCs SNG vehicles on the market,whose transmissions are then receivedand distributed via the main switching

room.

stop there. Four diesel generators with

an output of 2.5 MW each can take over

power supply at CBC in case a power

failure in the public grid occurs. Our

emergency power supply is designed

to provide enough energy to keep all

technical installations up and running,

emphasises Wilfried Klinke. And it can

run endlessly, provided the tanks keep

getting topped up with diesel f uel.

Even though to date this contingency

plan never had to be activated it justgoes to show how diligently CBC makes

sure nothing can stop the production

and distribution of content.

Only the latest technology is good

enough for CBC every thing runs with-

out tape and this is an ideal base for

exploiting alternative distribution chan-

nels (such as IPTV, video-on-demand or

mobile applications) as well. Even 3D is

not out of the question for CBC, since all

technical components do not only sup-

port full HD but are also 3D compatible.

The future has already arrived at CBC.

3. This is what the CBC Contentbanklooks like. Behind a glass panel thereare rows of stapled data carriers.Mido Fayad, head of the broadcasting

department, and his colleagues lookafter this huge content archive.

4. Meet Jrgen Lieder: He managesthe main switching room and whathe loves most is to coordinate theglobal playout of German Bundesligasoccer matches. Here he can beseen preparing the broadcasts of theupcoming match day.

Documents

Cologne Broadcasting Center