20 years in the business, SatLinkCommunications provides end-to-end solutions
for content transmission over satellite, fibres and IP to all continents. David
Hochner, CEOsince 1995, recalls starting out with two earth stations andmaking
the leap to the forefront of technological development by being fast, affordable,
reliable, flexible and creative. He has just bought a newHDPlayout Centre…
atLink has
collaborated with
existing playout
facility MTVS
since 2006. Last
year, since
demand was
increasing, we decided to bring this
in‐house and made MTVS an offer
to sell this part of their activities.
Now we are investing a
significant sum to upgrade the
Media Centre to our standard –
running the whole system under an
ERP system, and a powerful M&C
system to go to the next stage of
MAM, implementing the latest
technology to upgrade the robotics
and archive environment to the
next generation which can do
transcoding, Over‐The‐Top
applications as well.
I can see that content
management is an area of strong
future expansion as operators of
IPTV, OTT, cable TV and DTH all
need this, in different ways. And
the more players there are, the
more room for us to offer.
Which are the buoyant business
segments?
The majority of our services is to
tier 1 clients which broadcast to a
continent, not just a country. In
addition to the company existing
activity to Europe and Asian
broadcast markets, the segment
that we are concentrating on now is
contribution and distribution to
three main territories: Africa, South
America and Eastern Europe.
Those, from our point of view, are
the emerging markets where we see
growth and opportunities for the
satellite industry.
We have to be realistic – in Latin
America we have to deal with
bureaucracy and some legal
restrictions.
We have just launched our
solutions for contribution and
distribution over Africa and are also
launching to South America soon.
What are the trends in SD, HD & 3D?
SD is concentrating on Free‐to‐Air
and those platforms that are
switching to an MPEG4
environment because the DTH
platforms definitely will have to go
to a different technology in order to
reduce bandwidth to support the
HD growth.
I believe that within the next 5‐7
years most of the DTH operators
will become DVB‐S2 platforms. The
major growth on 3D will be in
VOD, live concerts and childrenʹs
channels – not sport though as I
don’t see the environment where
friends are sitting together all
wearing 3D glasses catching on.
However, if the technology evolves
to allow viewers to view 3D
without the glasses, then the
viewing experience of sport would
become much more exciting.
What do the London Olympics
mean for your business?
SatLink has been doing Occasional
Use ‐ sport and news ‐ since day
one. We have invested in huge
amounts of infrastructure and
today are able to do up to 26
simultaneous HD traffic between
Europe and Asia ‐ live events like
Formula 1, the ATP Tour, the
Olympics or Football World Cup.
For London we are already under
contract to deliver something close
to 500 megabits overall between
Europe to Asia and Africa.
Is fibre a threat or part of the mix?
We need those fibres, because from
a point‐to‐point it is the best, cost‐
effective way to be next door to our
broadcaster. Fibre is very useful to
connect our teleports, and we also
have our own solutions via fibre
44
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ISSUE 2 2012
|
THE CHANNEL
NOT CLIENTS
Africa,
South
America
and East-
ern Europe
are the
emerging
markets
where we
see growth
THE CHANNEL
|
DISTRIBUTION
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