Polsat TV speeds up content delivery with IBM cloud’s Aspera Technology

Warsaw, Poland - 09 Nov 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM ) announced today that -Telewizja Polsat has selected IBM Aspera to provide a complete set of solutions that will significantly improve the way content is ingested from local producers and global correspondents to their broadcast station. IBM Aspera has replaced using external media, like tapes, hard disks and DVD's and other slow and ineffective methods of transfers.

Telewizja Polsat, established in 1992, is the biggest commercial broadcaster in Poland. The company broadcasts more than 30 channels and belongs to Cyfrowy Polsat Group, the biggest media-and -telecommunications group in Poland. Telewizja Polsat collaborates with 40 Polish production houses and content producers that submit programs, series and movies in a specific HD format for transmission every day. In addition, the broadcaster works closely with global news and sports producers, which also send the latest up-to date reports and announcements from all over the world. One hour of TV content alone usually consists of 25 GB of data, reaching approximately 12 TB of content every month.

Previously, this volume of content was delivered on external media, such as tapes, hard disks and DVDs, or transferred using FTP. However, after deploying a tapeless production and broadcast system several years ago, Telewizja Polsat realized their previous transfer methods were too slow and ineffective, involving too many people carrying out the work manually. In addition, its past transfer methods had become impractical due to the growing size of digital media, as well as additional new locations and signed contracts with new content providers.

That's when Telewizja Polsat started to look for software-based alternatives of delivering digital content in a fast, reliable and secure manner. After an initial evaluation, Telewizja Polsat decided to deploy IBM Aspera technology at the studio’s headquarters in Warsaw. Today IBM Aspera provides an integral solution for gathering TV content, enabling high-speed transfer of multi-gigabyte digital assets and real-time collaboration with geographically distributed news and sports correspondents. The intuitive web interface enables new content providers and correspondents to start transferring files immediately without the need to learn a complicated system.

"Our broadcast depends on IBM Aspera every day,” says Andrzej Szymański, IT/TV manager at Telewizja Polsat. “Sometimes content comes in within days of a planned broadcast, which previously require a long process of acceptance and control to be performed in a very short time frame. Aspera drastically reduces the time it takes for us to receive the content, shortening the end-to-end workflow and ensuring we can have content ready to go in time for transmission on our channels,” adds Andrzej Szymanski.

Based on the patented FASP® high-speed file transport technology, the IBM Aspera solution enables Telewizja Polsat to handle the daily file uploads, ingest and sharing workflows with greater speed, security and efficiency. Aspera Connect Server powers high-speed file transfers from local content producers and global correspondents to Telewizja Polsat, while Aspera’s Web-based Console provides a comprehensive management environment for monitoring and prioritizing content transfers.

"Broadcasters like Telewizja Polsat are always striving to deliver the highest quality programming.”–says Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder Aspera.„Faster content acquisition and shorter end-to-end workflows with the IBM Aspera technology allows them to meet their tight production schedules and broadcast news and reports when they are still relevant to their growing audiences ”.

With IBM Aspera technology, globally dispersed correspondents at Telewizja Polsat in the US, Russia, Germany, Italy, Belgium and around the world, can submit raw and final shots via their mobile devices directly to Polsat for automatic transfer to newsrooms or sports production systems. Aspera’s intuitive email-style interface allows individual contributors to quickly upload large video files without requiring any technical expertise. The integrated notifications alert team members when content has been successfully delivered and downloaded.