TV Azteca Prepares for IP Future with Imagine Communications

TV Azteca continues to grow in terms of the number of programming hours they produce, as well as by expanding to create content for OTT and other digital platforms. With plans to make a gradual transition to IP distribution, cloud-based operations and 4K UHD, the company was looking to replace aging playout and master control infrastructure with flexible technology that would enable them to efficiently run their current business and easily evolve to meet future requirements. 

“TV Azteca is evolving to create and co-create the best television for our audience, and certainly an infrastructure upgrade like this will bring us closer to our goal to have an avant-garde company,” said Pedro Carmona Ortiz, technology director at TV Azteca. “The shift is part of our efforts to make ourselves better so that we can keep delivering high-quality content with top technology.”
 

Carmona went on, “Our ultimate goal at Azteca is an end-to-end IP workflow — from the camera to the screen of our TV viewers.  Imagine Communications has provided us with an innovative and practical solution that enabled us to maintain much of our legacy equipment, while allowing us to gradually shift into a purely IP-based operation over the next couple of years.”

The new Imagine Communications playout system features 20 Nexio+™ AMP® software-defined media servers, which support uncompressed and compressed IP and UHD/HD/SD SDI I/O.  Three Versio™ IOX SAN high-performance online storage systems provide a total of 528 TB storage and allow scaling of storage and bandwidth without affecting existing media or interrupting on-air operations. Nexio® Media Gateway appliances enable high-speed file transfer of large quantities of data to and from the shared storage system using standard Ethernet connectivity.  

“TV Azteca takes a highly innovative but practical approach to technology implementation, which enables them to maintain a competitive edge as the industry evolves,” said Imagine Communications’ Sergio Yáñez, vice president, CALA Sales.  “We are proud of our long relationship with this future-focused media organization and look forward to continue supporting TV Azteca with practical solutions and migration strategies that align with their specific requirements.” 

As TV Azteca moves toward cloud-based operations, Imagine Communications offers multiple transition paths for seamlessly migrating Nexio+ customers to Versio Platform, the company’s cloud-native, microservices-based playout solution.
 

About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, futureproof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry.

About TV Azteca
TV Azteca is one of the two largest producers of Spanish-language television programming in the world, operating four television networks in Mexico, Azteca Trece, Azteca 7, adn40 and a+ through more than 300 owned and operated stations across the country. The company also operates Azteca Web, an Internet company for North American Spanish speakers.