Comcast Media Center Automates Ad Delivery

Comcast Media Center's Radiance division has integrated with Telestream's digital media workflow system to simplify the distribution of HD and SD advertising spots to broadcast and cable companies.
The companies said the integrated solution provides completely automated delivery of advertising spots, including receipt, notification, tracking, previewing, reformatting and delivery to on-air servers. Spots are delivered in each destination's native file format ready for air - so that they don't need to be transcoded at the destination.
Today, ad spots are often sent in a generic file format, meaning cable operators and broadcasters have to manually check each one and transcode it into the native file format they require, according to Gary Traver, CMC's senior vice president and chief operating officer. With the enhanced AdDelivery system "manual transcoding, along with its cost and capacity for errors, becomes a thing of the past," he said.
The Radiance electronic ad-delivery platform is used by operators representing 80% of the total cable footprint, according to Traver. About 62% of cable programming networks have the AdDelivery system installed, with another 20% to 25% in the process of deploying it, he added.
"By automating the distribution process from end to end, we have built quality control into the system and eliminated the need for costly human intervention at virtually every step," Traver said.
CMC acquired Santa Clara, Calif.-based Radiance Technologies in 2008 for about $5 million. Telestream is based in Nevada City, Calif., with offices in France, Germany, Sweden, U.K.