SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Television Breakaway system
- Notice Date
- 12/1/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 515120
— Television Broadcasting
- Contracting Office
- General Services Administration, Federal Technology Service (FTS), FTS, 7T-6 Southwest Texas, 100 NE Loop 410, Ste 1400, San Antonio, TX, 78216
- ZIP Code
- 78216
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-F85750011T6
- Response Due
- 12/7/2005
- Archive Date
- 12/22/2005
- Description
- This is a Small Business Sources Sought Notice for the following requirement. Only those firms qualifying as a Small Business should respond. This Performance Work Statement sets forth the requirements for an integrator to provide and install ten commercially available off-the-shelf multichannel NTSC television break-away/automation systems which are already currently offered for sale to commercial broadcasters and cable system operators. Each of these systems shall playout eight independent channels and be scalable for future expansion. These systems will enable American Forces Radio and Television Servcie (AFRTS) manned affiliates at ten geographically separated locations to automatically and manually insert commercial breaks (spot material) into network programming streams and provide long and short form programming throughout a broadcast day in the event that network feeds are lost. Locations for this contract are: Operating Location-A, Detachment 4 AFNEWS, FELTWELL, England Detachment 6 AFNEWS, LAJES, Azores Detachment 7 AFNEWS, INCIRLIK, Turkey Detachment 8 AFNEWS, AVIANO, Italy Detachment 9 AFNEWS, SPANGDAHLEM, Germany Detachment 10 AFNEWS, YOKOTA (TOKYO), Japan Detachment 11 AFNEWS, OKINAWA, Japan Detachment 12 AFNEWS, MISAWA, Japan Detachment 13 AFNEWS, IWAKUNI, Japan Detachment 14 AFNEWS, SASEBO, Japan Each of these locations receives primary programming from the Network headquarters, Defense Media Center-Broadcast Center (DMC-BC), Riverside, California via satellite service to Europe and the Pacific. There exists in addition to the local automation requirement a requirement for transcoding of material using Anystream Agility to provide product to an automation system already owned by the Government and used in Germany. 4.1. System Concept The basic system concept is for the Television Break-away/Automation System to insert local spot breaks and News into the AFRTS program stream. Schedules for each of the eight channels are provided by Network headquarters, also referred to as the DMC-BC, 3-5 days in advance and indicate the break times or ?avails? in which to insert local products. Local manipulation of the scheduled breaks does not normally occur. For the purposes of this document the terms ?spot?, ?product?, ?interstitial material?, ?short form? or ?long form? are synonymous in that they refer to television program material produced or recorded in-house for air at a later time. Our simplified TV automation concept for this award covers three main areas of functionality. a. The Playlist Management System, residing at the User layer, which interfaces to the AFRTS Network schedules. It also plans schedules, provides reports, and controls the automation software. Ingest plays a prominent role in this area as well. Most program material will be ingested from Avid Unity? and not controlled by the play-out automation system. These files will require format conversion to the internal format of the transmission servers. It is important that this process also writes the metadata required by the automation system so that it can recognize the material once it is ingested. The automation system shall also be able to control a local VTR to ingest material directly into the transmission servers in the event of failure of either Avid or Contractor Provided transcoder. b. The middle applications such as ?automation? software which controls the hardware through machine control servers; ?playlist? software which receives commands from both the traffic layer and the automation layer; performs monitoring & tracking function, ?database and library? software; and other programs designed to mesh the different areas into a unified delivery system. Transcoding also occurs within this area. c. The hardware which actually performs transcoding, stores material and streams it to air. For the purposes of this document, playout servers may also be called channel servers, cache, edge, transmission or streaming servers. All storage configurations offered must offer seamless delivery of product in the event of a failure in any portion of the configuration. It is important to note that total redundancy is a critical evaluation item. Downstream keyers and Character Generator are also located in this area. Character generator will be used for onscreen messaging on a channel-selectable or all-channels basis. DSK will be used for channel branding. Both shall be controlled either manually or through the playlist as scheduled events. 4.2. System Reliability Guaranteed reliability and protection of media and media delivery streams is a fundamental requirement. All systems evaluated will be assessed against potential single-points of failure. All systems will be judged as to the level of media protection, server protection, and software failsafes offered in the basic system. 4.3. Common Operating Environment The following information is provided to describe those characteristics which are common among all ten overseas locations in regards to the source of our programming, the cues used to trigger insertion events, the current playlist system and methods for accomplishing these things. Programming Stream: Each of the ten stations currently receives a statistically multiplexed MPEG stream containing ten TV services and 15 radio services. This satellite stream originates at the Network headquarters, also referred to as AFRTS-DMC-BC, Riverside, CA 92518. It is decoded to composite video with separate audio. Any solution offered must take this into account when considering switvjing or ingest. At present, insertion only occurs on four channels using a custom modified Avid Airplay?. Our intent is to completely remove and replace the Airplay. Any system provided under this award shall provide eight channels of locally automated insertion plus content transcoding and delivery management of content. Scheduling: The scheduling of programming streams occurs at the AFRTS-DMC-BC and utilizes Encoda?s BMS traffic system. Break schedules are currently provided manually to affiliate stations as tab delimited text for importing as playlists. These schedules are then manually converted through a small conversion program, and local product information is inserted into local break availabilities. Any system awarded under this solicitation must provide automatic ingest of schedule information. Number of Playout Channels: Each location will require automation capable of sustaining eight channels of local insertion Cueing Source: Each of the satellite streams received contains between 3 and 12 sub-audible cue tones ranging from 25hz-35Hz. These tones are locked to the video stream. These tones are then decoded to a specific cue through the use of Wegener tone decoders which provide momentary dry contact closures. The following table outlines various cues used by the DMC-BC to initiate events. INTERESTED FIRMS SHOULD E MAIL KAREN BEYER at karen.beyer@gsa.gov no later than 12/07/2005.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Various locations worldwide
- Record
- SN00943152-W 20051203/051201212507 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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