News

Softron Introduces OnTheAir News Macintosh-Based News Management System (28/4/2008)

Integrates with Softron's playout and CG applications as well as third party graphic editors and teleprompters

Softron Media Services today formally introduced and announced the immediate availability of OnTheAir News, a news room management system built for Apple's Macintosh computer.

OnTheAir News integrates with other Softron and third party applications to bring a true Macintosh experience to newsroom users.

OnTheAir News provides the components that news producers and journalists need to have in front of them to make all the real-time decisions that are the essential in daily newsroom operations whether those operations are at large local affiliate stations, at smaller educational, regional or community stations or at international broadcasters with offices in different countries.

OnTheAir News provides script creation and editing, bulletin management, third party prompter integration, OnTheAir CG integration for headlines and crawls and OnTheAir Video integration for package playback as well as over the shoulder still or backgrounds for green screen operations. OnTheAir News also provides a fully integrated web creation environment, with single click creation of instant news and headline pages as well as instant RSS feed generation. For stations with more complex web strategies OnThe Air News provides industry standard PHP integration to allow existing web content management systems to connect to the newsroom database. For journalists working on packaged clips for a story, OnThe Air News also provides a complete workflow for Final Cut Pro users, by allowing journalists to select media clips, sound bites and stills, and sends them, as well as the package voice over script, direct to Final Cut Pro. OnTheAir News also caters for remote journalists with the ability to offer all the features of the news environment over a lite weight web based PHP interface, allowing an iPhone, web enabled smart phone, or laptop on a slow connection to access all the features of the news room system.

Apple's introduction of podcast producer within its server operating system offers seamless creation and distribution of video or audio podcasts directly from OnTheAir News package clips.

"We are extremely pleased to ship OnTheAir News," said Daniel Tapie, CEO of Softron Media Services. "So many of our users throughout the world have requested a powerful Mac oriented newsroom system that works not just the way they need it to work, but also works with our other applications. They trust us to provide comprehensive solutions that they can depend on."

Tapie went on to state that, "Historically the news room business has been based upon proprietary and closed technology. The use of standard Mac / Unix based computers utilizing one of the world's most popular and open cross platform database systems, FileMaker Pro, has brought the newsroom world into the 21st century. Standard users can enjoy the reliability and performance of an open database deployed in over 10 million clients, with advanced users having the ability to extend and evolve the functionality of the system via standard scripting."

OnTheAir News is priced at €6,995 or US$10,995. OnTheAir News supports 1 to 250 users in a networked environment.

www.softronmedia.com  

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