News from across the globe is being streamed live to over 300 individual workstations and into every meeting room at the US Institute of Peace (USIP) building in Washington DC following a substantial roll-out of MediaStar Evolution, the integrated IPTV and signage system from Cabletime. Located on Constitution Avenue, one block from the Lincoln Memorial and close to the White House, the iconic building is home to the vital work of conflict amelioration, striving to prevent and manage international conflicts with analysis, research, training and field work around the globe.
The installation of an integrated IP-based video and AV distribution solution has enabled USIP to deploy streaming, IPTV and signage content, replacing the three different legacy systems in use previously. Being used across the system is MediaStar Media Manager, a powerful software tool that makes content acquisition, management and display of all types of media simple, so that scheduling and accurate display of the appropriate content to the right audience is made certain.
“We came to Cabletime with a clear idea of what we needed, which was the ability to stream video and audio to and from all our meeting rooms, and a tight timeframe in which to achieve it,” said William Vaughan, Audio Visual Manager at USIP. “We got plenty of insight and a good overview of the system before we selected it, and we were also convinced that MediaStar Evolution would be expandable, which was important to us.”
Evolution controls video displays throughout the USIP facility providing a combination of multichannel IPTV, digital signage, creative and emergency messaging and in-house stream generation from any point within the building using portable encoders. The central MediaStar server also manages the distribution and play-out of over 50 in-house and broadcast TV channels to every workstation in the building. This process makes it very easy to create multiple employee information channels for HR, special events and room scheduling. In addition, overflow audiences from the main auditorium and meeting rooms are easily accommodated using portable encoders.
“We’re using the system mainly for delivering live news content,” continued William Vaughan. “But we also use it to broadcast important delegate meetings, so they can be accessed by people working at their desks in the facility. USIP has so many different functions from hosting discussions and seminars to running high level events and initiative building sessions for different conflict zones, so there is always a need for video communication.”
The first-phase MediaStar Evolution roll-out was completed in April, but USIP has further plans for expanding the system.
“The installation was smooth, and considering that we were under time pressure, Cabletime worked flawlessly to get it right. We’re very happy with it, and we are now considering adding the iVoD functionality (Video on Demand) which we will use for training purposes. This will help us to improve the reach and efficiency of our program.”
The MediaStar range provides TV/AV and multimedia distribution products primarily for medium to large enterprises, which require future-proof, stable and proven solutions for live TV, corporate communications, multicasts, music TV, training and digital signage.
