Operated by State of Mexico agency Sistema de Radio y Televisión Mexiquense, TV Mexiquense on channel 34 is one of the most important regional and cultural content providers in Mexico. Broadcasting since 1984, the station airs locally and internationally thanks to its agreements with pay-TV operators in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

“TV Mexiquense offers its own content and productions that showcase the state’s cultural wealth, as well as keeping audiences informed through news programs,” explains Juan Carlos Flores, engineering and services assistant manager, TV Mexiquense. “As Mexico’s television broadcasting technology is being revamped, we’re working to deliver the best picture quality to our viewers. Avid solutions are a key element in helping us achieve this.”

In 2012, the Mexican government announced the shutdown of analog broadcasting, and by 2016, all broadcasters must transmit through digital terrestrial television (DTT). To help it begin broadcasting through DTT in a timely manner, TV Mexiquense needed to improve the integration between its newsroom, production center and video library.

Integration through Avid Everywhere

To help achieve this goal, TV Mexiquense embraced Avid Everywhere by investing in an integrated Avid solution through Mexican distributor Grupo Arte y Tecnología S.A. de CV (ARTEC). Reliability and a long-standing working relationship with Avid were key factors in the station’s decision to unify its newsroom, production center and video library using Avid solutions.

Powered by the Avid MediaCentral platform, TV Mexiquense’s new, integrated workflow has significantly reduced the time it takes to load content to its Avid AirSpeed | 5500 ingest and playout servers. Avid Interplay | Production controls all the incoming material and manages content storage for 20 iNEWS newsroom management systems on Avid ISIS | 5500 shared storage.

The Avid solution enables TV Mexiquense to work with editors in any location, access their platform from everywhere, and distribute content to multiple platforms, including social networks.

“This integrated workflow allows us to have oversight of the generated material, edit it and add metadata—essential capabilities that we didn’t have before,” says Flores. “And loading content—a process that used to take up to six hours—has been reduced to just one hour.”

Avid Media Composer: digitizing 30 years of tapes

After 30 years of broadcasting and production, TV Mexiquense has an extensive tape-based video library that needs to be digitized. The TV station has chosen the industry’s preeminent editing system, Avid Media Composer, to help achieve this ambitious goal.

“In our video library we have four Media Composer systems managing the loading of content from tape-based media to digital files,” explains Flores. “Avid will play a major role in the digitization of three decades of the station’s historical film archive.”

TV Mexiquense also uses Media Composer and Media Composer | Symphony Option for editing HD digital content, which stands the station in good stead for the digital switch-over.

“The latest version of Media Composer gives us several ways to import content and enables us to work with it without constantly needing to render,” explains Arturo Alvarez, editor, TV Mexiquense. “Another significant benefit is its ability to communicate with other equipment. Being able to send all the content from one program to the master without needing to export to a physical disc eases the connection between the news department and the video library.”

With its new workflow, TV Mexiquense has positioned itself as one of the most competitive and technologically advanced broadcasters in the industry. “We plan to continue investing in new Avid solutions, and with the tools the company gives us in the cloud, we’ll take advantage of the opportunity to integrate the station with new production systems and workflows,” concludes Flores.