News integration RTL Lëtzebuerg

BCE’s challenge was to update the old tapeless system to today’s requirements with a multiplication of digital format entries (MPEG, MOV, MP4, H264, etc..) and to give the same flexibility for outgoing content.

RTL Lëtzebuerg is today Luxembourg’s number one channel. The company’s success is based on its willingness to offer local contents to Luxembourg’s viewers.

Its programs are fully targeted to the Luxemburgish audience, with news and shows. RTL Lëtzebuerg presents 2 distinctive channels, RTL and RTL2.

The first one focuses on news and magazines, whereas the second channel offers the same content as RTL during the day with live events in the evening. During the day the two channels complete each other with radio Web TV, Real Estate TV, RTL Shop and RTL Kids.

“BCE updated our installations with the best technology at an affordable price. The flexibility of the system with its easy integration of new technologies and its opening to Internet ensures our investment.”
Alain Berwick | Managing director | RTL Lëtzebuerg.

CHALLENGE – Update the running system to a more flexible solution

File based workflow is today’s market standard, RTL Lëtzebuerg needs to have the capacity to adapt to any type of content with a fully interactive newsroom system.

BCE’s challenge was to update the old tapeless system to today’s requirements with a multiplication of digital format entries (MPEG, MOV, MP4, H264, etc..) and to give the same flexibility for outgoing content.

Although RTL Lëtzebuerg’s installations were fully tapeless between the newsroom and the broadcast, the ingest and part of the broadcasting were still tape-based.

More than just opening the system to all possible formats, the system had to be flexible enough to adapt to any new standard. Finally, this complete new workflow had to be adapted to the different departments in RTL Lëtzebuerg, including journalists on the field.

“As technology evolves rapidly new solutions are needed. More than just updating their tapeless system, RTL Lëtzebuerg wanted to be prepared for the future, with an intelligent system, capable of acquiring any files in any format. We delivered a solution that meets exactly their needs with no boundaries and without completely changing their old installation.”
Jean Lampach | Head of Technical Services | BCE.

SOLUTION – Open tapeless system with digital archiving

BCE managed the transfer from a proprietary tapeless system to an open system.

• Fully transparent tapeless system
• Fast journalists feeds integration within minutes in the newsroom with Newslink
• Tapeless system between all the departments of RTL Lëtzebuerg
• Tapeless system between the journalists and the newsroom
• Easy archiving of all the digitized videos and interactive database for easy repurposing of content.

“Short deadlines, difficult working conditions or very sophisticated projects, they have done it all. In all the years we have been working with BCE, they always met the deadlines.”
Jacques Van Luijk | Production manager | RTL Lëtzebuerg.

BENEFITS

With its new infrastructure and its fully tapeless workflow, RTL Lëtzebuerg is now able to meet the market needs in quality and fast news. The different steps of a news project are easily done with the best quality and a greater interaction between the departments. The structure design allows easy upgrade with new technologies and the integration of new video formats.

• Flexibility
• File based production workflow
• Reactivity
• Real editing in the newsroom
• Creation & conservation of the metada
• Easy evolution with new technologies

“The new infrastructure gives us much more flexibility and allows us to be much more reactive in terms of breaking news. The increase of speed has been reinvested in the quality of our news and magazines.”
Jacques Van Luijk | Production manager | RTL Lëtzebuerg.