Cogeco Media operates 20 radio stations across Québec and one in Ontario. The company said it reaches approximately 5 million listeners each week.
Pascal Gélinas, Cogeco’s head of technology, along with Saint-Sauveur-based integrator Marketing Marc Vallee, approached Tieline in 2021 for assistance in designing a new distribution network for its content and contribution codecs.
Other engineers involved in the project included Jean-Pierre Cyr and Pierre-Luc Bégin, Cogeco’s main system engineers, who were involved in the final design planning and deployment.
Martin Perkin and Frédéric Vendette, Cogeco’s technology directors, supervised the project deployment, while engineer Alexandre Bérubé was heavily involved in the testing of the solution during its proof-of-concept phase.
Streamlined approach
Cogeco sought to standardize equipment in a manner that was easier on its technical support staff.
In eight cities, Tieline Gateways were deployed for Cogeco’s distribution network, while another eight units were configured for peer-to-peer communications to isolate contribution and distribution streams.
[Related: “Codecs Should Be Easy to Use and Troubleshoot”]
Cogeco outfitted many of its studios with Wheatstone products. As a result, the Gateway codecs needed WheatNet-IP cards to support AoIP transport throughout its studios, as well as support for WheatNet-based logic I/Os between its sites, which trigger all of its commercial breaks.
Gélinas was tasked with the design and build-out of a distribution network that maintained quality, equal or greater redundancy than previously, and adhered to all security standards.
Eight locations across Quebec
Two Gateways were installed in the eight cities of Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, St-Jérôme, Chicoutimi and Québec. They replaced older Tieline Commander G3 codecs and Musicam USA codecs.
At each location, the Gateways serve different purposes. Most are part of a syndication network that sends streams, receives streams or performs a combination of the two. Others provide the capability to perform remote broadcasts without interfering with the distribution network. The Gateways also support inter-studio connections between the eight cities.
Gélinas praised the redundancy the Gateways provide when using the SmartStream PLUS feature, which supports two ISPs. Tieline added this feature to multi-unicast streams at Cogeco’s request. Cogeco noted that this allowed sufficient redundancy for its contribution links, peer-to-peer connections and its new syndication network.
The transition process included testing the codecs to ensure the equipment performed smoothly in a controlled environment. Next, codecs were installed in two cities initially, before the remaining codecs were rolled out across the network seamlessly over time.
Frédéric Vendette, Cogeco’s director of technology operations, was happy with the project’s outcome. He credited the fast learning curve of the Gateway codecs and their flexibility to be used to both syndicate programming and receive content from ViA codecs used for remote broadcasts.
