theibcdaily Broadcast Services group grows Ericsson By Ian McMurray
Demonstrating what the company describes as its broad capabilities is Ericsson’s newly expanded Broadcast Services group, boosted by the finalisation of the acquisition of Technicolor’s Broadcast Services Division in July 2012. The acquisition netted Ericsson some 900 highly skilled professionals, according to the company, as well as playout
operations based in France, UK and the Netherlands serving several leading broadcasters. “The TV industry is undergoing fundamental changes with the transition to multiplatform, on-demand television,” said Thorsten Sauer,
Head of Broadcast Services, Ericsson. “We take the lead in driving this transformation together with our partners. Our aim is to become the industry leader in TV technology and services. In our offering for media broadcasters, we
combine our managed services and technology leadership with strategic investments in playout operations, capability and competence.
“Having further strengthened our services offering through the acquisition of Technicolor’s
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Broadcast Services Division, we are enabling operators to maximise network quality and performance, and focus on their customers, while leaving the integration of equipment from multiple vendors, multi- technology change programmes, operations management, and design and integration of new solutions to Ericsson.” 1.D61
FM radio launches
Harris By Dick Hobbs
Harris has added four new low-power radio transmitters to its Flexiva range, from 50W to 500W. The existing range spans 1kW to 40kW, so multi-site FM broadcasters now have the ability to plan coverage using transmitters from the same family.
Alongside the Flexiva Harris has also introduced the Platinum Vax, built on the
company’s PowerSmart technology. This means the 50, 300 and 600W transmitters occupy just 2U, while providing significant savings in power consumption. Demonstrated on the Harris stand is a new distribution system based on electronic data interchange (EDI), which allows low-cost,
targeted content delivery to many transmitters across large geographical regions. A central EDI sub-system in the headend multiplexes and
distributes the content, with an EDI module built into the Apex M2X exciter picking up the content intended for that site alone. Harris claims this is the industry’s only integrated EDI system for DAB, eliminating expensive external components. 7.G20
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