Red+ is a successful Colombian broadcaster who wanted to modernize their existing newsroom system to have a workflow suitable for modern news delivery and improve collaboration amongst their staff.
As a national broadcaster with news as a major part of its commercial output, Red+ had been working with EPNS but found it to have many limitations when creating continuities for different news stories and issues with user creation and licensing. They desperately wanted a change for the better.
Jorge Anders Duque, a producer at Red+ explains “As soon as we started to work with Octopus, we could feel the difference. Octopus simplified our newsroom operations. It was possible to organize the creation of continuities and stories. The assignment of notes for journalists helped us organize the day-to-day work, and the creation of users coupled with the assignment of permits were much simpler.”
The selection of a newsroom system can be complicated. In this case Octopus met with many of the requirements of Red+ but went through a defined proof of concept to prove the system.
Duque continues “We liked the intuitive and simplified interface, and it can run across a range of different operating systems and platform devices. Reliability and ease of administration were all strong points, during testing and training it gave us a lot of confidence. And, one more thing, we thought Octopus had a better social media integration of any NRCS we had seen!”
The system was installed in December 2017 and is being utilized by journalists, producers and engineering on Windows devices, and in the editing rooms on MAC platforms, but importantly all working seamlessly within the same operational environment.
One of the engineering challenges of any new implementation was the communication with the different legacy systems including the Aveco, Harmonic, Imagine, VIZRT and Autoscript (MOS) systems.
Javier Rodriguez, a RED+ engineer describes his experiences: “In terms of hardware integration, the advice from Octopus and the support of the supplier helped enormously. By facilitating the configuration, this in turn helped us to better understand the operation in order to solve any likely issues that might arise during normal operation. From the engineering part I would say that it has been a very stable system, we have been going for more than a year and we have not had any serious problem with Octopus. When there has been a fault, we have just solved it ourselves.”
One of the major factors that Octopus prides itself on is the implementation, training and after sales support it provides for its global customers. Red+ was no exception.
Andres Restrepo, a producer with Red+ said: “We had an initial test mock-up that was used to practice and train staff when we were ready to perform some programs. Octopus was installed and configured alongside the existing ENPS news system that we had at the time. As we gained more practice and experience, the main ENPS shows were withdrawn and their productions started with Octopus.”
Restrepo continues “The training was divided in two parts. One part for the production team and the second was the technical. This was very important as it had to very clear for the production part and for the team of journalists, who themselves had to train new colleagues. But importantly without the need for engineering assistance.
On the technical side, the training covered all the necessary topics to help carry out the day-to-day operational tasks as well as to solve any inefficiencies that have arisen with the new system. During the change and transformation process, the explanations received were also very important.”
Rodriguez concluded that “To go on the air, there was the visit of an Octopus engineer, Milan Varga, who was always attentive to the concerns and requested requirements to get the most out of Octopus. Very few were drastic problems but recommendations in the configuration of some options and short-cuts. In a short time, it was able to air normally.”
A very happy customer!