Technology > in focus
Digital TV Europe May/June 2010
In Brief
New industry group Network operators from across Europe have joined forces to create an industry group, Broadcast Networks Europe. The new association said it would seek to ensure a fair reg- ulatory and operational environ- ment for its members. Operators from 20 countries have signed up and, at launch, the list of associated companies included Arqiva from the UK, Norkring from Norway, TDF from France, Teracom from Sweden and Digita from Finland. The group is chaired by TDF’s Bernard Pauchon.
ERTU selects Ericsson Infrastructure provider Ericsson has announced that it has sup- plied Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) with a new contribution and distribu- tion video headend solution to upgrade its network. The system features Ericsson MPEG-2 E5710 encoders, RX8200 decoders, MX8400 multiplexer and TT6120 network adapters, which are fully controlled by nCompass Control, the manage- ment system for broadcast headends for configuration and system monitoring.
Verimatrix certifies Intel Conditional access specialist Verimatrix has certified the Intel Atom Processor CE4100 for use with its ViewRight video securi- ty technologies. Verimatrix said the certification is based on the advanced features of the CE4100 system-on-chip that support the security require- ments for premium pay-TV serv- ice delivery to hybrid and IPTV set-top boxes, consumer elec- tronics equipment and mobile devices.
Harmonic reveals new products Motorola
At NAB in April, Harmonic intro- duced its new distribution man- agement system to enable over- the-air in-band control of content distribution network elements including ProView 7000 receivers and ProStream 1000 stream processors. The manage- ment system provides a single control system for video distribu- tion networks combining sched- uling, configuration, software upgrade and inventory manage- ment capabilities. In addition, DMS provides support for black- out management and secure broadcast of video content over satellite and IP, according to Harmonic.
Harmonic also launched the
Rhozet Workflow System (WFS), a task-based workflow engine for
automated management. According to Harmonic, Rhozet WFS supports Harmonic’s Rhozet Quality Control System (QCS) to incorporate file-based quality testing and automated compli- ance as part of the transcoding process and can manage large- scale networks of Carbon Coder transcoder nodes in a distributed “farm” configuration. Harmonic also announced that the Electra 8000 multichannel HD/SD universal encoder and ProStream 4000 transcoder had completed compliance testing for the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform. According to Harmonic, the ProStream 4000 can gener- ate up to 46 picture-in-picture streams in one rack unit from MPEG-2 or H264 IP sources.
ADB launches Freeview HD box
Set-top box maker ADB has taken a step into the UK retail market by launching a DVB-T2 HD set-top. The set-top, to be marketed under ADB’s retail brand, iCan, will include ADB’s own Carbo user interface, and will come in a small form factor. The box will be a connected
device, and ADB plans to deliver the BBC iPlayer catch-up TV serv- ice on it from launch, using an HTML version of its interaction channel. The box is expected to be in the shops from May. ADB said it had no plans for a DVR version of the box for now. “The version in the shops will
have iPlayer in it straight away,” said Paul Bristow, vice-president of strategy, middleware and con- sumer experience at ADB. ADB has sold about two million MHP- enabled retail boxes in Italy. Separately, ADB has collaborat- ed with IPTV monitoring specialist Mariner to offer an integrated
service monitoring solution for IPTV set-tops. ADB will integrate Mariner’s xVu service assurance suite with its latest IPTV set-top boxes. The solution will provide quantifiable metrics on the quality of the video, audio and perform- ance of each set-top box in each home. It will give operators visibili- ty into problems of long channel change times, errors within the video such as frame drop, and can proactively resolve them. “As operators continue to invest a sig- nificant amount of resources to acquire new subscribers, the importance on retaining these has never been higher. A key aspect to subscriber retention is video serv- ice quality,” said François Pogodalla, CEO of ADB.
“Operators who deploy the joint Mariner-ADB system will be able to anticipate and more efficiently address service glitches, thus reducing disruptions and enabling a seamless consumer experience.” ADB has also announced that it
has won an order from Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) to deploy set-top boxes. Starting on Trinidad, the telco will deploy the ADB-2500W SD set-top, ADB- 3800W HD-capable model and ADB-5810WX HD-capable DVR. The solution is being deployed in conjunction with Border States Electric. TSTT has also contracted ADB to assist with system integra- tion. “For this rollout, we needed our set-top solution providers to have a strong commitment to quality, the ability to help us dif- ferentiate services, and the resources to ensure a trouble-free roll-out,” said Gary Barrow, EVP, converged services for TSTT.
Visit us at
www.digitaltveurope.net 38 enables 3D TV
Motorola’s mobile devices and home unit has launched software enhancements for its DCX range of set-top boxes to support 3D TV. The set-top range now sup-
ports 3D TV over both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 and is capable of 1080p24/30 output. Also, upon detection of 3D content, the set- to automatically reformats all on- screen text and graphics to match the incoming 3D format so that they can be correctly displayed by the 3D TV set. The 3D processing software
supports all on-screen displays such as closed captioning, emer- gency alerts, application graphics and text overlays, as well as exist- ing EPGs and applications.
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