12 February 2006
The proposed fiscal year 2007 budget for U.S. international broadcasting calls for an overall increase of 4.3% from fiscal year 2006 targeted to the war on terror and new technology.
While proposed increases go primarily to Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Voice of America (VOA), non-war on terror related language services would see reductions and/or eliminations.
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson said, “In the post-Katrina budget environment, I believe we are fortunate to get an increase that strengthens our role in the war on terrorism. The ’07 proposed budget of $671.9 million follows a 7.5% increase for fiscal year ’06.”
In recent years, the Bush Administration and Congress have wiped out the 40 percent cut in spending for international broadcasting during the 1990s following the end of the Cold War. For fiscal year 2007, the budget proposal calls for a 13% increase for Middle East Broadcasting Networks and a 5.3% increase for Voice of America.
The Board of Governors’ proposed $671.9 million budget includes a number of new initiatives, enhancements and a continuation of initiatives begun in ’06. They include:
Expanding service to Iran with a daily four-hour prime time VOA Persian television lineup and enhancing the Radio Farda website.
Increasing Middle East television news coverage (Alhurra) from 16 to 24 hours a day and adding customized local news content and coverage for Radio Sawa.
Adding a one-hour television program for Afghanistan in both Dari and Pashto, and enhancing transmission for VOA Pashto programming to the people of Afghanistan along the border region while adding additional FM and medium wave capability.
Faced with the increased costs of expanding critically needed television and radio programming to the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world, the Board has had to make some painful choices. As a result, the budget proposes reductions in English language programming, by eliminating VOA News Now radio while maintaining VOA English to Africa, Special English and VOA’s English website.
The budget reflects the Board’s commitment to English language programming in the medium of the future, the Internet, and for excellence in Special English programming. Research shows that millions more are benefiting from Internet programming than from shortwave transmission, which VOA News Now relies on.
Other proposed reductions include the elimination of VOA broadcasts in Croatian, Turkish, Thai, Greek and Georgian. VOA radio broadcasts in Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Serbian, Russian and Hindi would end while television programming in these languages would continue. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty will continue radio programming in Russian and Georgian while eliminating radio programming in Macedonian.
“Every member of the Board of Governors regrets the loss of VOA services proposed in this budget,” Tomlinson said. “The men and women who provided these services for many years served with distinction and provided programming that were critical to this nation’s interests. However, the Board believes that the priorities reflected in this budget proposal represent the best allocation of funds.”
12 February 2006
International Russian television channel RTR Planeta has now reached Asia following a distribution partnership between content management and delivery company GlobeCast, satellite transmissions company Satlink and leading satellite operator AsiaSat. RTR Planeta, owned by Russian state television and radio broadcasting Company RTR, provides programming that includes cultural and prime time news, sports, feature films and documentary movies.
The channel is received by Satlink from the Express 3A satellite in Tel Aviv, where it is multiplexed and uplinked onto Satlinks platform on AsiaSat 2 for Free-to-Air distribution over Asia.
GlobeCast has a long relationship with RTR Planeta, carrying it both on its platform on the Hot Bird satellite over Europe and as part of its GlobeCast WorldTV offering in the United States on Intelsat Americas 5. The AsiaSat 2 Satellite provides ideal C-band coverage of a potential 53 countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and the C.I.S. RTR Planetas new home on this Satlink-operated platform means that the channel shares a neighborhood with TVE, RAI International, RTP and Radio France International among others.
12 February 2006
Pegaso Banda Ancha and PanAmSat announced that they will help deliver Mexicos Enciclomedia Internet interconnectity program to over 13,000 elementary schools throughout the country. Concurrently, ViaSat announced that it has finalized a contract to supply its SurfBeam® DOCSIS-for-satellite broadband satellite networking system to Mexico-based Pegaso Banda Ancha for the 13,000-plus school sites. The deliveries of the network hub and terminals have already begun.
Through our strategic relationships with ViaSat and PanAmSat, we will be able to provide service to this very important project that will contribute to the progress of education in every corner of Mexico, said Javier Braun Burillo, general director of Pegaso Banda Ancha.
The Pegaso Banda Ancha network will connect to the Internet backbone through the PanAmSat teleport in Atlanta, Georgia, using extended Ku-band capacity on the PAS-1R satellite. PAS-1R, one of the largest and most powerful commercial geostationary satellites ever launched, offers an expanded and enhanced reach throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa. The Atlanta teleport is PanAmSats primary satellite transmissions gateway to Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. It provides crucial turnaround services between the Atlantic Ocean Region and the U.S.
Through PanAmSats powerful and reliable fleet, Pegaso Banda Anchas satellite-delivered communications network and ViaSat SurfBeam terminals, our companies efforts will help contribute to the roll-out of Enciclomedia, bringing todays technological advances in education to young students in Mexico, said Joe Wright, CEO, PanAmSat..
The mission of the Enciclomedia initiative is to modernize rural, suburban and urban schools throughout Mexico by installing electronic blackboards, computers, UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) and sensors to monitor the classroom activity. Initially, Pegaso Banda Ancha will provide the interconnectivity to monitor the classroom as well as Internet access. Additional throughput and bandwidth can be provided as needed.
Were very proud that Pegaso has chosen our SurfBeam system for this very large scale Enciclomedia system, said Jorge Vespoli, vice president of worldwide sales for ViaSat. Based on our DOCSIS-for-satellite technology, this project is unprecedented in terms of its scale, leading technology and the speed of deployment and activation.
The ViaSat DOCSIS-for-satellite system is a new approach to broadband satellite communications that makes satellites a very cost-effective medium for broadband delivery through very efficient use of satellite bandwidth, low-cost consumer terminals and mature back office and customer service systems. The open standard network adapts the cable modem networking standard called DOCSIS® (Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications) to satellite transmission. Because the DOCSIS broadband networking standard is already used by millions of terrestrial cable customers, the technology is highly developed and low-cost in terms of modem chipsets, hub (head end) hardware, installation and customer support.
10 February 2006
At NAB 2006, Wohler Technologies will introduce a new Touch Screen LCD video monitor series with mini router function, and multi-screen output. The Touch-it series from Wohler Technologies, offers a simple and easy way to monitor multi-channel video, provide routing, as well as multi-screen output in a compact and versatile space saving 3RU. The touch screen video monitor is ideal for multi-camera live shoots, machine rooms, and outside broadcasts.
The new Touchit LCD touch screen video monitor has dual high resolution 7 LCD panels, offering video confidence monitoring for up to 12 channels of composite video. The Dual 7 wide screen high resolution touch screen monitors twelve, 1.8 thumbnail images on left with touch screen selection of image appearing on right screen at full size. Any of the 1.8 thumbnail images can easily be selected by a simple touch of the screen to view as a larger 7 wide screen image on the second LCD panel.
The Touch-it series is also available with audio monitoring of 12 stereo analog audio inputs, internal speakers and routing function. Selected video output appears on BNC connectors and selected audio following video output on XLR connectors.
Wohler Technologies is the world leader of in rack audio and video monitoring solutions. Since 1983, the worldwide broadcast industry turns to Wohler to provide standard or custom solutions to their audio and video monitoring needs. Wohler Technologies will be exhibiting the Touch it Series, in addition to the other new and existing High Resolution, HD audio and video monitoring equipment at NAB 2006. Visit Wohler Technologies in the central hall at booth # C 5132.
10 February 2006
Victor Entertainment Co, the Tokyo based music video and audio production and marketing company, has purchased a Quantel eQ Editing/ effects/ grading/ mastering system in its Pay as you Go HD configuration. The eQ sits at the heart of Victors in-house post production facility handling all its current SD post requirements, and has been purchased with an eye to the high resolution future as more and more of Victors clients look to produce in HD.
“We are seeing an increase in demand for HD production at Victor, said Visual Director, Teruaki Onishi. The Pay as you Go HD concept allows us to make the eQ fully HD capable at any time we need, and if we reach a point where it is desirable to have the HD always on, then we can do this for a reasonable cost. It also gives us the means to handle HD and SD alongside each other, which will be very helpful to us in future as we are planning to build a network storage system for audio and video, effectively giving us a high-speed media archive system interfaced with the eQ.
Another important benefit for Victor in selecting the eQ is its ability to handle Panasonic Varicam HD video. eQ is very efficient at handling Varicam material, which is used a lot for music video production, adds Mr Onishi. Beyond that, we also appreciate the high quality and long in-service life of Quantel systems, and we are looking forward to further exciting developments for the system in the future.
