8 November 2005
At the Rory Peck Awards for freelance news workers in London on 8 November, Al Jazeera International announced its support of the Rory Peck Trust. The Trust provides assistance to freelancers who have been injured in the course of their work as well as supporting the families of freelancers who have been killed through their work.
Al Jazeera International, the English-language news channel, will launch in the Spring of 2006 from four news centres in Doha, London, Kuala Lumpur and Washington DC. The channel will make extensive use of freelance news teams from camera crews to journalists throughout the world.
3 November 2005
The British Forces Broadcast Service (BFBS) is to use Arqivas Satellite Media Solutions division and Scanners OB unit to broadcast the Combined Forces rugby teams clash with the Barbarians in Newbury in November. Arqiva is to deliver Occasional Video services (SNG) with six cameras and effects facilities, plus satellite space segment and uplink services from its Chalfont site.
Live coverage of this important rugby match is a first for BFBS and warrants the highest quality professional broadcast service for our troops around the world, says BFBS sports producer Jon Knighton. Arqivas flexible services are a critical part of delivering coverage of the game with a professional look and feel.
This multi-site operation demonstrates Arqivas adaptability to every broadcast demand, says Arqivas head of occasional video Andy Tweedley. For BFBS, our combination of production and transmission facilities is ideal for its special one-off rugby event.
Arqiva already provides studio, playout, transmission and satellite distribution services for BFBS’ six TV and twenty radio channels to its fixed bases including the Falklands, Iraq, Bosnia and Royal Navy vessels globally.
“BFBS’ television remit is highly specialised and its production requirements extensive,” says Andy. “Arqivas Occasional Video and satellite services make valuable additions to the facilities which make up its system.”
3 November 2005
SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company has been chosen by the UKs leading South Asian cable and satellite TV provider Sony Entertainment Television (SET) Asia to transmit its newly launched TV channel MAX. MAX is a Premium subscription channel, which offers a mix of Indian Bollywood movies and international events on the ASTRA 2A satellite in the orbital position 28.2° East. Programme languages include Hindi, Urdu, and English. MAX is SET Asias second TV channel after SET Asia, launched by SET in 1998 on ASTRA 2A.
Alexander Oudendijk, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA, said: We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with SET Asia and to welcome its second channel to the ASTRA broadcast family. We are very pleased that SET Asia considers SES ASTRA their natural first choice when launching a new channel in Europe.
Rajan Singh, Executive Vice President of SET Asia, said: Being on the right platform is crucial to our business and that’s why SES ASTRA was the obvious and best choice when we decided to launch our second channel. After the success of SET Asias flagship channel SET Asia, MAX will increase the networks appeal to its target audience in the UK.
2 November 2005
Teletrax has secured a multi-year contract with World Television PLC to monitor the usage of the video news service British Satellite News (BSN), it was announced today by the digital video watermarking firm. Teletrax, a subsidiary of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated, is based in London, has offices in New York and Hollywood, and maintains its operations hub in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The contract with World Television, a communication solutions company that distributes BSN for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the British Government, represents a longer-term commitment and further expands coverage of world media, as compared to Teletraxs earlier work on behalf of the FCO in 2003.
Under the terms of the new agreement, Teletrax will monitor usage of the enhanced BSN service, a daily news feed providing reports about events in the United Kingdom. Channels monitored by Teletrax include major broadcasters in countries such as Syria, Oman, Qatar, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and China.
Using its award-winning service, Teletrax will report via a dedicated web portal the down-to-the-second details of video usage by global broadcasters. This broadcast intelligence enables World Television to rapidly evaluate the respective performance of individual news segments across a wide range of TV channels and countries. Knowing which of its stories broadcasters are airing and, as importantly, not airing allows the World Television news team to continually refine its editorial offering to meet the needs of its 440 broadcast clients across the globe.
We are extremely pleased to renew our relationship with the FCO, said Andy Nobbs, president of Teletrax. This agreement further demonstrates how critical content management is for news providers. In an ever expanding and fragmenting global TV marketplace, the ability to target the right news information to the right audience at the right time is crucial. Teletrax will help World Television achieve that ambition.
Launched in 2002 as a service developed by a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and Medialink, with an underlying technology that is patent protected both by Philips and Digimarc Corp., Teletraxs technology embeds an imperceptible digital watermark into video that is robust enough to survive strenuous editing, transmission, broadcast or duplication.
A global network of decoders, or detectors, captures every single broadcast occurrence of the embedded video, and that data is then presented in comprehensive reports to the original content providers as part of the Teletrax service. Reports of individual broadcast airings are delivered online in near real-time to each clients custom-designed portal or in data file transfers. Each clients broadcast activity is updated dynamically, 24 hours a day, enabling clients to respond immediately to reported results such as changes in end-user preferences or detections of unauthorized use.
Teletrax currently maintains a proprietary network of detectors that monitor the television broadcasts of over 1,000 channels worldwide. Its U.S. footprint includes more than 800 television stations and cable channels in more than the top 100 markets in the United States, representing more than 85% of all U.S. television households. Its international network monitors nearly 200 channels being broadcast from 50 nations and is comprised of 12 monitoring stations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South and Central America, and Canada.
World Television joins a growing list of leading news, entertainment and media organizations that have adopted Teletrax as the standard-bearer for tracking broadcast video content, including: The NBC Agency, Buena Vista Television, ABC Television Network, Tribune Entertainment, NBC Universal Television Distribution, NBC News Channel, Reuters Television, Mercury Media, Internet Broadcasting, Media Review International, and Medialink, Teletraxs parent company. A number of other entertainment, news and media companies are also currently testing the Teletrax service.
2 November 2005
Harris Corporation’s Broadcast Communications Division (BCD) announced that it has received four coveted industry awards worldwide during the last two months. At the Beijing International Radio and TV Exhibition (BIRTV 2005), a Product Award was presented for the Harris Atlas(tm) TVU-D665
DVB-H/DVB-T Transposer/Gap-Filler. This same product won a “STAR
Award” from TV Technology magazine at the 2005 IBC Conference in Amsterdam. Other awards from the 2005 IBC Conference included the “Product of the Year” award from Cable & Satellite International for the new DVB-T Liquid Cooled Output Filter; and the “Best of IBC” Award from Television Broadcast Europe (TVB Europe) for the Harris H-Class(tm) Content Delivery Platform.
The DVB-T Liquid Cooled Output Filter was chosen by Cable & Satellite International magazine as “Product of the Year” in the highly competitive category of “Best Terrestrial Wireless Contribution/Distribution/Transmission Solution.” Recognized for its innovative design, the DVB-T Liquid Cooled Output Filter is unique in its ability to use a Harris DVB-T transmitter’s existing liquid cooling system to dissipate the heat build-up from filter operation. The benefit of this cooling design, in combination with a very low insertion loss, is a significant reduction in energy consumption, resulting in dramatic operational savings throughout the product’s life.
The “Best of IBC Award” won by the Harris H-Class Content Delivery Platform was chosen by the combined editorial teams of TVB Europe, TVB USA and the IBC Daily as one of the most innovative new product introductions at IBC 2005. According to TVB Europe and IBC Daily Editor Fergal Ringrose, “We were especially looking for new products that clearly show the potential to make money, or save money, for end users – rather than clever technology for technology’s sake.”
H-Class(tm) is a modular, scalable, standards-based, enterprise-class platform that supports a highly integrated set of applications for moving and managing content from the time it is created to the time it is distributed. Intelligent use of metadata means that the H-Class platform can do a lot more automatically, thus increasing efficiency. By providing a consistent, structured and well-specified development environment, organizations can – for the first time – realize the dream of integrating their applications across the digital supply chain with the common thread of metadata linking business functions with operational mandates.
The Harris Atlas(tm) TVU-D665 DVB-H/DVB-T Transposer/Gap-Filler was a recipient of the 2005 STAR (Superior Technology Award Recipient) Award given by the editorial staff of TV Technology Europe magazine at IBC 2005. The Atlas TVU-D665 line features Harris’ unique digital IF (Intermediate Frequency) filtering that eliminates cross-channel interference – a problem that habitually occurs when adjacent high-power channels are operating within the same coverage area.
“STAR awards are given to innovative and ground-breaking new products,” said Mark Hallinger, editor of TV Technology Europe. “The products selected help advance the industry – some were chosen because of technical novelty or innovation; some because they filled an important gap in the production or transmission chain, and some because they were just cool.”
The Harris Atlas TVU-D665 DVB-H/DVB-T Transposer/Gap-Filler also was honored with the BIRTV Product Award during BIRTV 2005.
“Each of these awards is testimony to the hard work and dedication of the entire team at Harris,” said Mary Beth Harnett, global director of marketing and branding at Harris BCD. “It is particularly gratifying that, in addition to enthusiastic customer acceptance, these products and technologies are judged by industry experts as warranting special recognition for excellence.”
