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The rare site of two Peregrine Falcons nesting on top of a high rise building in the centre of Manchester was brought to passers-by via the BBC's Big Screen technology, with images streamed through Cabletime's MediaStar Evolution.

Interest in the falcons, which were being monitored by the RSPB, became more intense with the appearance of three eggs. A camera was set up by the BBC and links created to the Big Screen, which is situated in Exchange Square in the heart of Manchester. To show the avian action live, the BBC decided to run a trial using Cabletime's MediaStar Evolution solution, which takes a feed from the camera, digitises it, and plays it out live over the Internet.

Larger than life

William Jenkyns, Technology Development Manager at BBC Live Events, said: "We normally use the BBC Big Screens to show local news and weather and often include locally-sourced footage from university students or from events in the area. This was an opportunity to show the people of Manchester larger than life images of the birds, right down to the birth of the falcon chicks. The RSPB also had a stand just below the screen so that people could ask questions about the falcons. MediaStar was a very reliable hardware solution, and the whole project was a total success"

BBC Big Screens are part of the BBC's Public Space Broadcasting media concept, a unique collaboration between the BBC, cutting-edge video technology providers and UK city councils. The screen in Manchester's Exchange Square was the first to be launched and has proved itself to be a powerful magnet for urban regeneration.

From isolation to high resolution

The live video streaming of the falcons also attracted attention from BBC North West Tonight, which ran regular bulletins and a competition to name the three chicks.

Cabletime's MediaStar Evolution Encoder proved the ideal solution for this particular challenge. Because the falcon's nest was in an isolated location, where no client LAN existed from which to take a video feed, a Unicast network link was installed enabling Evolution to encode the camera feed in real time, and display the stream in high resolution on the Big Screen.

Peter Butler, Business Development Manager at Cabletime, said: "Evolution is a highly flexible product, which is designed to work over ISP networks. As a result it worked well in this environment, and provided a stable, robust feed as and when the BBC Big Screen and BBC North West Tonight focused on the peregrine falcons".