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Boston’s WGBH Broadcasts Region’s First ATSC Mobile Video Service with Thomson Platform from Grass Valley

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:09:14 +0000

Paris, France/Nevada City, Calif. March 23, 2010 – WGBH, the public broadcaster in Boston, Mass and the leading producer for PBS, has installed a new Thomson mobile video transmission system from Grass Valley™, based on the ATSC A/153 standard. WGBH’s mobile video service was launched in late 2009 with additional channels added in 2010.

In addition to its main HD DTV channel, the station is simulcasting two Mobile DTV channels: its primary signal plus the ‘GBH Kids channel. WGBH is also rebroadcasting its radio services 89.7 WGBH and 99.5 All Classical in mobile as part of its 6 MHz of digital television spectrum.

“We’re very excited to be the first in our market to offer Mobile DTV services to our audience. We see Mobile DTV as a way to expand our ability to deliver services such as our 99.5 All Classical to a broader geographic area on a wider range of devices”, said Joe Igoe, Chief Technology Officer for WGBH. “Grass Valley’s statistical multiplexing for Mobile DTV will allow us to offer more of our educational services at a higher quality level than would be otherwise possible in our broadcast spectrum. We plan to offer additional Mobile DTV services as the market develops.”

As the only supplier in the broadcast industry to provide equipment from image capture through RF transmission, Grass Valley leveraged years of experience and a broad product portfolio to develop a complete ATSC Mobile DTV system that is fully integrated and pre-configured to ensure real-world success.

“Unlike standard ATSC Mobile DTV encoders, the ViBE line offers Scalable Video Coding and unique Region of Interest encoding algorithms that automatically detect the visually interesting area of a picture and processes them accordingly,” said Christophe Delahousse, Senior Vice President of the Headend and Transmissions business units within Grass Valley. “This allows broadcasters to cost-effectively re-purpose ‘large screen’ content for smaller displays associated with mobile and other handheld devices, further enhancing the user’s experience with the mobile content. Once receiver chips hit the market, we expect WGBH to be successful in the mobile video space, as they have been in other areas of broadcasting; including HDTV.”

Grass Valley is one of the few vendors to offer an end-to-end mobile DTV video solution. The WGBH order includes a new Thomson Adapt IV Exciter with mobility software, a NetProcessor 9030, a Jade electronic services guide (ESG) server, two new ViBE mobility encoders in a statistical multiplexing mode, two ViBE audio encoders, and an Amethyst smart switch for redundancy. Grass Valley engineers handled all equipment installation and commissioning.

WGBH is a longtime Grass Valley customer, and now operates several Grass Valley K2 media servers and other equipment. The station currently operates a two-tube Thomson DCX Paragon MSDC-IOT transmitter, which will now also include the new Adapt IV exciter that has been retrofitted for simultaneous ATSC terrestrial and mobile video operation. WGBH’s sister station WGBX operates a Thomson DCX Millennium single tube transmitter to broadcast its on-air signal.

Thomson ATSC Mobile DTV Terrestrial Broadcast Technology from Grass Valley is backward compatible with legacy ATSC transmission systems, enabling stations to use their existing DTV channel and the mandated ATSC 8-VSB modulation scheme. The technology offers several significant technological advantages over other systems, including the use of M/H Block Coding to provide maximum capability for signal reception.

The basic equipment needed to begin broadcasting mobile video services via ATSC Mobile DTV includes program encoders, a multiplexer, an ESG guide server, and a compatible DTV transmission exciter. Each of these devices is now available in field-tested production models from Grass Valley.

Grass Valley Boosts Content Distribution and Transmission Efficiency with NAB Launches

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:05:57 +0000

Paris, France/Nevada City, Calif. March, 2 2010 – With pressure on broadcasters to deliver more services and greatly improve energy efficiency, Grass Valley™ is launching new functionality for its video compression and TV transmission equipment at NAB 2010. The innovations support HD, 3D, green technologies and mobile broadcasts.

Powered by the unique Grass Valley Mustang compression engine, the ViBE EM3000 HD encoder is now able to deliver remarkable and unprecedented performance in HD over MPEG-2. The power of the Mustang engine enables to deliver maximum quality at minimum bitrates and frees up capacity, allowing broadcasters to double the number of HD services available, and add new capabilities such as mobile television.

Grass Valley is also showcasing the latest innovations in 3D and 3G demonstrating how the precision, consistency, and excellent compression performance of its ViBE HD encoders now ensure that 3D shoots can be encapsulated in a single stream and delivered in perfect synchronization with excellent quality.

The ViBE family is enriched with a new range of encoders designed for contribution links, including point-to-point fiber to broadcast centers from remote locations such as sports venues. The ViBE contribution encoders’ family allows the user to set the compression ratio and codec to suit the transmission path, including low latency MPEG-4, MPEG-2 10-bit 4:2:2, and JPEG2000.

For broadcasters looking to tap into the new commercial benefits of mobile television, Grass Valley can now offer an end-to-end, field proven ATSC Mobile DTV transmission platform. The one-stop solution includes a complete headend with ViBE Mobile TV encoder, Jade electronic service guide server, and NetProcessor multiplexer. For transmission, the ATSC-M/H version of the standard Adapt-IV digital exciter can be used across the Thomson transmitter line from Grass Valley, including the Elite solid state, DCX Paragon MSDC-IOT, and DCX Millennium IOT digital transmitters.

All broadcast network types are now supported by the Elite TV transmitters including DVB-T, DVB-H, ATSC, ATSC mobile DTV, FLO, DAB, and recently ISDB-T.

Finally, with environmental concerns at the top of everyone’s agenda, NAB 2010 sees a new addition to the transmitter range, the Elite 1000 GreenPower transmitter. Using the latest in high efficiency solid state components, the new series delivers a significant reduction in energy usage, paving the way for environmentally friendly transmission networks.

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About Grass Valley

With a rich history serving the broadcast and professional video industries, the Grass Valley name is synonymous with innovation, leadership, and performance. With a full range of products and services supporting many of the world’s most high-profile television events, Grass Valley offers the most comprehensive portfolio of flexible and cost-effective digital technologies and systems available. Customers deploying Grass Valley solutions include most of the world’s leading broadcast and teleproduction facilities, independent video professionals, as well as emerging content creators and distributors providing broadband, telecommunications, and transmission services. When you’re watching news, sports, or entertainment programming, whether on a TV, the Web, or a mobile phone, you’re watching Grass Valley at work.

About Technicolor

Technicolor is a company listed on NYSE Euronext Paris and NYSE stock exchanges, and this press release may contain certain statements that constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors beyond Technicolor’s control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed, forecasted or implied by such forward-looking statements due to changes in global economic and business conditions, risks related to its debt restructuring, and risks related to its operations in general. For a more complete list and description of such risks and uncertainties, refer to Technicolor’s Form 20-F (formerly Thomson) and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Technicolor’s Rapport Annuel and other filings with the French Autorité des marchés financiers.

For information about Grass Valley products, please visit www.grassvalley.com.

Triveni Digital CTO Richard Chernock to Speak on Mobile DTV Delivery at the 2010 SBE Ennes Workshop

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:22:54 +0000

March 03, 2010 — DMN Newswire–2010-3-3–Triveni Digital today announced that the company’s chief technology officer, Dr. Richard Chernock, will present “Considerations for Adding Mobile DTV to a Broadcast Station” at the 2010 Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) Ennes Workshop during this year’s NAB Show. Themed on the topic of “Continuing the Digital Transition,” the Ennes Workshop is scheduled for April 10, and Chernock’s presentation will explore the requirements and challenges, as well as the operational considerations, of launching mobile DTV services from existing broadcast plants.

“ATSC Mobile DTV is an emerging technology that offers broadcasters considerable potential in terms of new business models and improved retention of viewers,” said Chernock. “Launching mobile DTV services need not be a complex and costly undertaking, and my goal in this presentation is to provide broadcasters with a simple roadmap for making this critical move. Equipped with the necessary knowledge and the proper mobile DTV capabilities, broadcasters can easily and cost-effectively expand the services they can offer to customers in today’s competitive media marketplace.”

In discussing the changes required in order to add mobile DTV capabilities to a station, Chernock will address the deployment of additional or modified equipment such as encoders, multiplexers, and transmitters. He also will speak on less obvious considerations surrounding workflow, bandwidth management, the addition of interactive and NRT services, and service protection. While the delivery of mobile DTV is still an evolving service, Chernock’s presentation will provide participants with a valuable summary of the considerations necessary for adding mobile DTV and an exploration of the lessons learned in deployments to date.

Chernock has held many leadership roles within the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and, as an active member of these organizations’ standards committees, has participated in the creation of standards and practices for DTV, metadata, and monitoring. He chairs a number of ATSC ad hoc committees whose work relates to metadata and transport issues. Chernock is vice-chair of the Technology Standards Group (TSG) and chairs the non-real-time services and mobile/handheld management layer activities within ATSC. He is also a participant in the SCTE HMS activity.

Featuring various tutorials and presentations by broadcast industry experts, the day-long SBE Ennes Workshop will be held in Room S219 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Saturday, April 10. Dr. Chernock’s session is scheduled from 10:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

More information about Triveni Digital and the company’s products is available at www.TriveniDigital.com.

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About Triveni Digital
Triveni Digital Inc., a subsidiary of LG Electronics, develops systems that provide for the management and distribution of data and metadata in DTV, mobile DTV, and IPTV streams. Triveni Digital’s products for DVB SI, ATSC PSIP, data broadcasting, stream analysis, and monitoring are renowned for their ease of use and innovative features. Working with leading industry partners, Triveni Digital employs an open and standards-compliant approach to the digital television market. More information is available at www.TriveniDigital.com.