Moving On Up: Replacing Your End-of-Life Playout Automation System

Moving On Up: Replacing Your End-of-LifePlayout Automation System

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The announcement earlier this year that one of our competitors had discontinued its family of playout and automation servers for PEG stations might not have come as a complete shock to their customers. The writing may have been on the wall for a while, as vendors like us continued to innovate faster than their existing supplier.

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Many of that company’s customers had already switched to Cablecast when their solution started to lag behind their needs. Still, the end-of-life of the competitor’s products came sooner than many expected, and the abruptness and finality of the decision have left many community media organizations anxious to plan their next steps.

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Never a Better Time Than the Present

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Has your automation and playout system been unceremoniously discontinued? If so, even if it’s still working for you, it’s time to start evaluating its replacement. This system is at the heart of your television operations, so the time to switch is before it fails you.

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While your existing vendor may still honor the warranty and provide support for the discontinued products, it’s clear that their days are numbered. Bug fixes and software upgrades are highly unlikely, making it hard to keep up with your audience’s evolving viewing habits. Replacement parts for any hardware problems may also be limited. As a critical communications provider to your community, you can't take the risk of a failure that the vendor can't quickly resolve.

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Switch without Stress

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Changing such a critical system probably seems daunting, but we’re here to make it easy. In the past few years alone, we’ve helped scores of customers transition to Cablecast from competitors’ solutions including Castus, Leightronix, and TelVue.

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Customers who switched to Cablecast have consistently praised how much faster and easier it is for scheduling; how much more efficient it is for streaming and VOD publishing; how liberating it is to be able to manage Cablecast remotely from anywhere; and many more benefits.

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The Cablecast platform sits perfectly at the nexus of traditional and modern content distribution, letting you efficiently reach audiences on cable television, the web, mobile devices, andOTT platforms with no additional effort. Add in powerful features like tightly integrated closed captioning and bulletin board capabilities, and you’ve got a comprehensive solution for all your multi-platform content distribution needs.

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More than Just a Product

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That said, product benefits and features aren’t the only criteria you should evaluate as you choose your replacement automation and playback solution. Of course, you should aim for improvements in functionality and workflow efficiency, but the vendor behind the technology is just as important to your immediate and long-term success.

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Research how they interact with their customers and the PEG community at large, and think about their commitment to meeting the current and future needs of community media organizations. Here at Tightrope, the entire Cablecast team – from operations and engineering to marketing and support – is passionate about PEG. It’s in our DNA.

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As part of our drive to fuel your success, we have also expanded our training offerings to help you get quickly up to speed and make the most of Cablecast. In addition to our free new-user training and technical support, we also offer an optional service that we call CablecastCo-Pilot. Essentially like taking private lessons with an expert Cablecast tutor, Cablecast Co-Pilot is designed to help you become a rockstar Cablecast user who can fearlessly face any programming situation that may arise.

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We’re Here to Help

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Ready to make the move off your old legacy system? Our experts are here to help you every step of the way. Contact us today to discuss your playout server needs. We hope you’ll soon be part of the Cablecast community!