Media Prima has returned to Pebble playout, automation and remote access for its new purpose-built headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and fully redundant disaster recovery site.
Media Prima Berhad has moved its broadcast facilities to a new purpose-built headquarters building in Kuala Lumpur. The company is one of Malaysia’s two main media and entertainment producers and currently broadcasts five channels through Media Prima Television Networks – TV3, 8TV, ntv7 and TV9, plus Radio Televisyen Malaysia. It also operates Malaysian content production company, Primeworks Studios, and video streaming platform Tonton.
Media Prima has used Pebble Automation for its primary playout facilities since 2013, and in 2024 made the decision to move back to its Balai Berita building in Kuala Lumpur. Pebble was once gain chosen to build the playout infrastructure based on its Automation control software, together with Integrated Channel delivery devices.
Complete Duplicate System
Because high availability and disaster recovery have been primary concerns for this project, Pebble’s implementation also includes a fully redundant disaster recovery site, located across the city. The company had an existing recovery site, Glenmarie, which used playout technology from a different vendor, but this had limited functionality and needed a refresh.
Pebble was asked to supply a complete duplicate system at Glenmarie – in this case, 5+5 fully redundant channels – connected via fibre between the two buildings. This kind of N+N redundancy has a duplicate component for every component in the system, covering the risk of all of the system's components breaking down at once. Maintaining perfect synchronisation of playlists and media between the two buildings is therefore a core part of the Pebble Automation software.
Remote Access and Operation
Media Prima also uses Pebble Remote, which gives access to authorised users from any location, allowing operation of either site, from anywhere, in times of disruption. This allows the backup site to operate unstaffed under normal circumstances, while still ensuring immediate handover in the case of issues at the main site.
Using Remote, Media Prima’s team controls channel playout operations with real-time playlist manipulation and media-aware multi-channel monitoring. Control of the playlists, including viewing and editing, is protected through user-based permissions.
Dedicated buttons and alerts may be configured on dashboards to address key functionality. Channel monitoring can be done from anywhere and allows the team to identify playlist and system errors by exception across the Automation system, and to recognise low latency outputs from their Integrated Channel system. Remote Channel Management functions include managing content, streaming video from storage, dynamically allocating ingest ports and resolving ingest scheduling conflicts automatically.
Comprehensive
The result is a comprehensive automated playout infrastructure with reliability and complete resilience, based on the years of experience that Media Prima has with Pebble’s software.
The project was implemented at Media Prima by Pebble in conjunction with its local integration partner Tiara Vision. Projects director Nik Ahmad Danial said, “Our relationship with Media Prima dates back to its beginnings, and we are proud of the contributions we have made along the way. This new playout infrastructure, providing complete resilience across two sites, called for close collaboration between us, Pebble and the customer.
“Migrating content and control while implementing enhanced workflows is always a challenge for projects like this. We had to secure the transformations while keeping all the channels on air without interruption. Due to the strong relationships between the parties, we successfully delivered what was needed.”
The disaster recovery system at Glenmarie was completed at the end of 2024, and the new site at Balai Berita was commissioned and handed over in early 2025, delivering fully redundant, live mirrored playout for five channels. www.pebble.tv
