Soul & Pepper Culinary TV Channel Launch Powered by PlayBox Neo

September 27th, 2021 – Channel-in-a-Box from PlayBox Neo, including AirBox Neo-20, TitleBox Neo-20 and Capture Suite, forms the broadcast playout core of the newly launched Soul & Pepper television channel now available to A1 Bulgaria TV subscribers. Produced and transmitted in 1080i high definition, the channel is designed to encourage viewers to make the cooking process more enjoyable, enhance their culinary knowledge and foster healthier diets. A1 TV subscribers can enjoy a variety of shows dedicated to balanced eating, barbecue, vegan dishes and exotic recipes. Presenters include experienced chefs such as Elena Jo Duggan (winner of the 2016 MasterChef Australia series) and gourmet restaurant chef Nikolai Krasimirov.

“Matching the most suitable technological solutions to the needs of our business customers is one of our top priorities,” comments Lyubomir Levchev, Senior Manager, Strategic ICT Projects, Innovations and Wholesale, at A1 Bulgaria. “We are glad that we identified AirBox Neo-20 as offering our playout staff an efficient and reliable combination of creative resources, stress-free control and proven reliability, to provide our partners from Soul & Pepper TV channel as a tool helping them meet and exceed A1 TV subscribers’ expectations for a nice TV experience. The solution is very space efficient with the main and backup playout servers each occupying just 2U, which helps our business customers.

“Incoming content is ingested using PlayBox Neo’s Capture Suite module which allows authorized staff to perform all the tasks needed for this process, locally or remotely, via a single graphic interface. Capture Suite integrates closely with the primary AirBox Neo-20 server which is used to coordinate playout scheduling in advance of actual transmission. All additions and any later changes are automatically mirrored onto the backup server as a normal professional precaution against the unlikely event of the main system failing on-air.

“Channel branding is handled using the TitleBox Neo-20 module. This allows titles, subtitles, stills, animated gifs, movie clips, rolling text, news flashes, coming-up-next promos, info-banners and so on, to be created and finessed within a logical framework. It is a creative artist’s dream provided it is managed within a predefined style; the module’s template structure makes that uniformity easy to administer.”

“AirBox Neo-20 continues to be the number one television playout choice both for broadcasters and telecommunication service providers,” adds PlayBox Neo Area Sales Manager Detelin Georgiev. “PlayBox Neo’s Channel-in-a-Box approach offers many advantages including straightforward integration with third-party equipment such as routers and network-attached archive servers and easy expansion if or when required to accommodate additional program channels. It also makes automation a breeze, allowing secure round-the-clock operation while retaining the freedom to add live content whenever required.”

About A1 Bulgaria

A1, part of A1 Group, is a leading provider of communications, payment and entertainment services as well as integrated business solutions. Offering mobile and fixed services, high speed broadband internet, satellite TV, own interactive TV platform, four sport channels under the MAX Sport brand, financial services, ICT, cloud, and IoT solutions, A1 Bulgaria generated revenues of EUR 513,8 million in 2020 and an EBITDA of EUR 192.4 million.

A1 Group is a leading digital services and communications provider in the CEE region with more than 27 million customers across seven countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Serbia. Offering communications, payment and entertainment services as well as integrated business solutions A1 Group achieved revenues of EUR 4.55 billion in 2020. Around 18,000 employees and state of the art broadband infrastructure make digital business and lifestyle possible and enable people, companies and things to connect everywhere anytime. As European unit of América Móvil, one of the largest wireless services providers in the world, А1 Group is headquartered in Vienna and gives access to global solutions.

About PlayBox Neo

Building on 21 years of successful innovation, PlayBox Neo (www.playboxneo.com) pioneered the development of high-efficiency server-based and cloud-based playout to support every scale and type of one-to-many communication. PlayBox Neo broadcast products and cloud solutions cover everything from full live playout to round-the-clock unattended transmission. They today power over 19,000 TV and branding channels in more than 120 countries. Users include national and international broadcasters, start-up TV channels, webcasters, interactive TV and music channels, film channels, remote TV channels, corporate information channels and disaster recovery channels. With its commercial HQ in Europe, PlayBox Neo has offices in the USA (PlayBox Neo LLC), in Singapore (PlayBox Neo Asia Pacific), in India (PlayBox Neo India) and the UK.