Channel 4 has spent more than£300,000 upgrading its broadcast servers.
Channel 4 has spent more than £300,000 upgrading its broadcast servers.

The servers will provide storage for automated playout and ingest for all C4 and E4 channels, and will be fully installed in the first quarter of next year.

The investment comprises four Pinnacle MediaStream MSS-8000s. They replace the existing Pinnacle system, which has been in place since 1996, improving the channel's disaster recovery capacity.

The servers can work with both high and standard-definition material, automatically up-rezzing SD files to HD.

Ken Burrows, the chief technology officer at C4, said that this was not a contributing factor.

'We haven't considered HD in this decision,' he said. 'We are increasing storage and extending its coverage to all interstitial and long-form programming.'

Burrows also mentioned that C4 was in the process of testing digital delivery methods with outside agencies, including Independent Media Distribution (IMD). He added: 'We're keen to get involved in tapeless, but it's all to do with making sure it's all in place with the suppliers.'

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