CANAL+ uses SGT (Hexaglobe Group) to strengthen its OTT offers with new digital sport channels

lundi 16 mars 2020
Par Harry Winston

CANAL+'s OTT service, myCanal, wanted to expand its offer by adding four new sports channels. Historic longtime customer of SGT (Hexaglobe Group), CANAL+ is already equipped with a SGT VEDA 16.4 automation system to broadcast of all its linear channels (fourteen channels). To meet the need expressed by the customer for sharing and optimizing resources, SGT has deployed four channel-in-a-box systems connected to the VEDA solution already in place. As part of Hexaglobe Group's core strategy, this project, which began in mid-October, was completed in record time, as two live channels were already in production by the end of 2019.

The CANAL+ Group, a leading player in the publishing of premium TV channels on the French media landscape, and particularly active in the ultra-competitive sports broadcasting sector, wishes to enrich the offer of its streaming platform myCanal. For the 2019 holiday season, CANAL+ wanted to offer to its audience an extended access to two championships: The English Premier League and the French Rugby TOP 14, thus demonstrating its ability to offer a global approach to content distribution, both linear and digital.

Provider of automation solutions for CANAL+ for more than fifteen years, SGT already supplies the fourteen linear playout channels of the Canal+ group with its VEDA suite (Automation and Media Asset Management). For its OTT myCanal platform, the choice was made to deploy four channel-in-a-boxes, connected to the VEDA system in production.

The implementation of these new channels had to answer to an operational and technical optimization imperative. To meet this challenge, the system includes an algorithm allowing to manage automatically these new playout channels from any existing ones.

This project was an opportunity for the SGT teams to demonstrate their agility, flexibility and know-how. Initiated in mid-October, the first two playout channels were deployed in a very short time and have been in production since the end of December (i.e. in just over two months):

– Canal+ Premier League, on air on 26 December for the traditional Boxing Day match between Leicester and Liverpool.
– Canal+ TOP14, on air two days later for French Rugby Boxing Day.

The next two channels will be deployed in March 2020.

The success of this project reinforces Hexaglobe Group’s vision and strategy: Bringing Broadcast and OTT together. It’s by listening the market request that the two entities of the group, Hexaglobe and SGT, together develop innovative solutions adapted to new uses, perfectly suited to the needs of CANAL+.

Technical specifications

All-in-one SGT solution:

– Video Servers

– Graphics server

– Audio Limiter

– Subtitling (option)

– 1+1 redundant broadcast automation