28 November 2005
GlobeCast, the global content management and delivery company, has added BFM TV, Europe 2TV, NRJ12 and Gulli to the list of channels it delivers in France to Direct-to-Home viewers via satellite and to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) bouquet operators via fiber.
BFM TV, a financial news channel belonging to the Nextradio group, has launched on GlobeCasts digital distribution platforms on the Hot Bird (13°E) and Astra (19.2°E) satellites, for insertion into the TPS and CanalSat bouquets.
Music channels Europe 2TV, entertainment channel NRJ12 and childrens channel Gulli, have also joined GlobeCasts satellite platform on Hot Bird. The three television stations are carried on TPS.
GlobeCast is also pushing all four of these new channels to French Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), delivering the signals via fiber from their points of origination to multiplexes in Paris. GlobeCast is currently the leading provider of satellite and fiber services for operators of DTT in France, delivering broadcast content via satellite to transmitters of three of the countrys five DTT platforms and routing the majority of channels via fiber to all five DTT multiplexes.
BFM TV also called on GlobeCast to put together a global contribution and video distribution infrastructure for its launch, linking 6 sites to an automated mobile contribution network via satellite. The network, which allows uplinks of on-the-ground reports, is comprised of three digital SNG vehicles as well as a fixed satellite reception station.
28 November 2005
SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company has closed a new long-term agreement with MTV Networks Europe for further capacity on an ASTRA satellite at the orbital position 19.2° East. MTV will use the newly contracted transponder to launch TV channels for different European markets, but primarily France and the Netherlands with MTV European, MTV NL, MTV Idol, MTV Pulse, and Nickelodeon France. MTV and Viacom have now contracted seven transponders in total from SES ASTRA.
28 November 2005
The new President of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) is Genichi Hashimoto, President of NHK-Japan.
He was elected at the General Assembly in Hanoi at the weekend to succeed Zainal Abidin Iberahim of RTM-Malaysia, who has been acting ABU President since Katsuji Ebisawa resigned from the post early in 2004.
Mr Hashimoto will serve a three-year term, starting on 1 January. An engineer by training, he joined NHK in 1968 and was General Managing Director/Executive Director-General for Engineering before becoming President.
28 November 2005
Media management remains the big issue for most broadcasters in
2005. Key buzzword at the industry’s largest annual exhibition, the
NAB Spring Convention in Las Vegas, was ‘workflow’. Roger Heath,
Sales & Marketing Director of Pharos Communications comments: “Workflow has always been a concern for broadcasters; the transition
from tape-based workflow to server-based programme archiving
sounds easy but has to be managed carefully or you can end up with
a system that keeps switching back to tape because there is a
comfort factor in having the physical asset. It is no longer good
enough just to build an effective library filing system. It needs to be
media centric and map the processes of a broadcast operation. Pharos
has the flexibility to operate on a customer by customer basis rather
than impose black-box solutions.”
“Pharos is continuing to focus on building its brand and reputation in
broadcast process management. Media asset management is central
to this and we have rolled out some significant systems that make the
handling of rich media files a far easier element of the broadcast
process. We see ourselves as a software systems provider for rich
media logistics.”
“In development terms Pharos has delivered systems that meet
broadcasters’ requirements in terms of deployment, management and
reliability. All three of these are important when considering solutions
in terms of ROI (return on investment) and SLAs (service-level
agreements). This infrastructure technology has been included with the systems delivered throughout 2005 including Advanced Broadcast Services,
Manchester United Television and TWI-SNTV.”
“Advanced Broadcast Services chose a combination of Sony Flexicart,
Sony PetaSite and Pharos Playtime for its expanded transmission
centre. Manchester United Television ordered Pharos Playtime as the
core of a new state-of-the-art technical gallery and transmission
suite. SNTV, the world’s only dedicated sports news television agency, began using Pharos Playtime as the heart of a highly versatile
production system delivering six daily bulletins of sports news.”
“On the exhibition front, IBC2005 was Pharos’ busiest show ever. We
launched Mediator on an enterprise architecture that allows it to be
scaled to many thousands of users. Mediator for broadcast process
management meets the demands of media asset management, integrating library management, media browsing and workflow control. Mediator’s web-based GUI is revolutionary in its simplicity of use, employing tasks that lead logically through each step of a
broadcast or pre-transmission operation. New operators find
Mediator’s control routine very easy to learn and enjoy the freedom it
offers to tackle non-urgent tasks in any order.”
“Mediator plays a central role at Technicolor Network Services UK
which selected Pharos for its new multi-channel playout facility.
Mediator provides Technicolor with workflow management which
integrates asset tracking, audio file uploads, processing, archive
management, reporting and status.”
“Media file exchange is becoming an increasingly popular technology
among broadcasters. We introduced three Pharos Rich Media Appliances: Rewrapper. Reflection and Transcoder. Pharos Rewrapper enables MPEG2 metadata to be matched precisely between different video servers. This eliminates the need for slow and lossy decompression and recompression processing of the video and audio data stream. Pharos Reflection is an MPEG4 browse proxy server enabling web based browse for any video server.”
“Pharos Transcoder allows video files to be converted between a wide
range of formats by dragging and dropping between source and
destination folders. Applications include downconverting broadcast-
quality content for internet-based distribution and upconverting
internet-delivered ENG feeds.”
“Outlook for 2006? Ongoing confusion in the world of file formats and the linking of different platforms together in the terms both of data
format and process workflow. We see a great opportunity for Pharos
as broadcasters will need to get systems in place fairly rapidly to
meet the accelerating demands of IPTV and HD delivery. The broadcast world will align itself increasingly to the publishing model, hence our emphasis on ‘Smarter Media Publishing’.”
26 November 2005
After the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper published news about the American president’s intention to bomb Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha and some of its bureaux abroad, on 24 November the satellite channel issued an appeal to the world’s media to investigate the facts behind this report. Voicing the fear that, if proven correct, this news item would confirm previous American threats against Aljazeera, and it would also confirm that the bombing of Al-Jazeera bureaux in Kabul and Baghdad and the consequent deaths of Al-Jazeera reporters were deliberate and premeditated acts against Al-Jazeera. In its statement, Al-Jazeera Channel noted that, if proven true, these acts are not only directed against against the Qatar-based channel but against the freedom of expression and democracy in general.
Al-Jazeera Head Wadah Khanfar is currently in London, calling for the facts to be made public and delivering a letter to Tony Blair. The report in the Daily Mirror alleged that Mr Blair had persuaded the US President not to bomb Al-Jazeera’s HQ in April 2004. The UK’s Attorney General has warned newspaper editors against publication under the Official Secrets Act. The controversy has grown with MPs tabling a Commons motion calling for the memo to be made public and accusing ministers of using the Official Secrets Act to save political embarrassment rather than protect national security.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Khanfar said: “This news that we have heard is very concerning. We demand a proper explanation and we would like to know the facts.” He said the matter was very important and that it concerned not only Al-Jazeera but journalists across the world.
Al-Jazeera has also asked the White House for an explanation.
23 November 2005
By the end of the current year the new Russian round-the-clock English-speaking news television channel Russia Today TV will be broadcasting live internationally by satellite in English to Europe, North America, Asia and Africa via the RRSAT Global Network.
Russia Today TV will provide information about events in Russia, and give viewers an opportunity to gain a Russian perspective on world events. It will send a realistic image of the country to audiences beyond its borders and bring an atmosphere of home to fellow countrymen living abroad. This is a challenging and ambitious project, and there is confidence the channel will represent Russia appropriately on the international scene, senior executives say.
Russia Today TV chose the most popular satellites for its global distribution, said David Rivel, founder and CEO of RRSAT Global Network. The channel will be available to viewers in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa via the HotBird-6 satellite; in the USA and Canada via Intelsat Americas 5 (Telstar-5); and in Asia and Australia via the Thaicom-3 satellite.
We found in RRSAT the right partner for our satellite distribution, said Sergey Frolov, General Director of TV Novosti, Russia Todays parent company. Their proposal proved to be efficient and cost-effective.
About Russia Today
Russia Today is a new, round-the-clock English-language news channel founded by the Russian information agency RIA Novosti. More than 300 journalists, Russian and foreign, work together to produce its news programmes. Participation by foreign professionals with vast experience working for international TV companies and news agencies will ensure high output quality. The integrity of the channels news content is based on international broadcasting standards.
Coverage of life in Russia – credible and impartial – is a crucial element of the new channel’s programming. Output will present a wide spectrum of opinion, including that of experts and political analysts of repute from both Russia and abroad.
We believe this will help our audience to view affairs in a new context and better understand world events, said Sergey Frolov. We anticipate that RTTV will enable its viewers to acquire in-depth knowledge of what is really happening in Russia.
About RRSAT
RRSAT is the fastest-growing provider of end-to-end transmission and playout services to the global satellite broadcasting industry. This includes channel distribution and backhaul services, SNG services, sports feeds and other occasional feed services. It also includes production support, playout centers and other value-added services to provide customers with complete solutions.
RRSATs new focus for 2005 is VOD, HD, MPEG 4 and Media 9 broadcasting. RRSAT provides global distribution services via satellite on a 24-hour daily basis to more than 150 TV channels on 16 digital platforms worldwide.
