At the end of October, the 18th Taktons was held in Novi Sad, a competition of sound engineers of public service media, organized by Radio-Television of Vojvodina. The new, modern building of RTV fulfills all the requirements necessary for the production of radio and television programs, but many Taktons veterans felt a bit nostalgic about the unique space where, half a century ago, music that marked these decades was created, recorded and performed. Traditionally, in addition to the competition, an exhibition of audio-visual equipment was held, where more than twenty manufacturers of devices and software presented their products.

Visitors who were interested in Taktons, had the opportunity to learn more about the StreamCircle playout software, a product from the company of the same name, from Prague, that is already present globally, so it can be expected that it will soon become available on the domestic market as well.

This was StreamCircle’s third public appearance in the region, after presentations at the Novi Sad School of Journalism at the beginning of summer and at the Moon Light Production studio in Skopje at the beginning of September. The StreamCircle demonstrators visited dozen television stations where they presented this software platform and while talking with the crews working on the preparation and broadcasting of programs, found out which elements should be taken into account during further development of the platform… and which possibilities and improvements they would like to see in the improved platform version.

StreamCircle is an automation and playout software that provides control over the broadcast of a television channel with the most diverse content, from general, general to specialized, thematic channels, news, children’s, sports, documentary or music channels. In accordance with the needs of a certain channel, StreamCircle can be configured for full or only partial automatic broadcasting, with the possibility for the operator to intervene and adapt the broadcasting schedule to sudden requests.

StreamCircle offers several useful tools for channel branding with additional video, audio content, graphics, and captions. When creating a playlist, it is possible to, simply, without affecting the source file, correct the beginning and the end and divide it into several segments in order to insert advertising slots. It is also possible to create content for electronic program guides (EPG) for broadcasting platforms and thus improve the recognizability of the channel in the ever-increasing competition of new channels. Finally, StreamCircle provides a detailed report on the broadcast program with all the important data necessary for analysis and future decisions of editors, publishers and regulators. In addition to television, StreamCircle is intended for anyone who has a large amount of educational, archival, commercial or other video content, and who intends to make it available to users.

StreamCircle is a software solution that has a unique graphical user interface regardless of whether it works locally or in the cloud and allows the addition of new channels without disrupting the already established workflow and routines of the program execution operator, which is already used in the Czech Republic’s public service media. In practice, StreamCircle has proven to be a reliable backup playout, which allows real-time online monitoring of the television station’s master control room operation and controls the output signal. If, for any reason, the broadcast gets interrupted, Stream Circle immediately turns on the playlist on its server and takes over the broadcast.

As an IT solution, StreamCircle enables users to store all their media content, broadcasting plans and schedules, and their backup copies locally, on their hardware or on a private, remote or public cloud, or to combine different storage. Thereby, users are able to create their own business model that will suit their needs by choosing the best features StreamCircle has to offer.

More information about the StreamCircle platform can be found at www.streamcircle-balkan.com.