5 October 2005
Harris Corporation’s Radio Broadcast Systems business unit recently traveled to Vietnam to participate in a three-day DRM consortium held in Dong Hoi, the capital city of the Quang Binh province. Engineers at Voice of Vietnam (VoV), the radio arm of the country’s state broadcaster TNVN, initiated the conference to educate VoV officials and various government advisers for broadcasters about DRM and its many benefits as a digital radio standard.
The consortium, held July 28-30, was deemed successful by participants, including the VoV’s engineering department. Harris provided a demonstration on the ease of launching a DRM broadcast by converting an operational DX(r) 200 medium-wave AM transmitter to broadcast at 40kW DRM. Various presentations, including a DRM overview by Mr. Trung, director of the Broadcast Engineering Department for VoV, and a discussion on coverage measurements by VT Communications, accompanied Harris’ presentation on transmitter conversion. The DX(r) 200 transmission could be heard 120 Km to the south using professional receivers and 65 Km to the north with weaker aerial and receiving devices.
“Harris’ DRM equipment provided exceptional clarity even in the robust mode needed to maintain coverage. We believe this demonstration confirmed that Harris’ DRM equipment provides the clearest audio quality of any DRM solution on the market today. This is an extension of Harris’ leadership in the high-power medium-wave market that the company has held for many years,” said John Hall, manager, AM Products and Programs for Harris BCD’s Radio Broadcast Systems business unit. “At the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) 2005, our customers repeatedly pointed to Harris’ DRM solution as providing the best audio quality at the lowest bit rate. We are very excited about the opportunities that DRM brings to broadcasters, from increased audio quality to additional revenue potential through datacasting that can be obtained with a minimal investment. We look forward to delivering more digital efficiency, audio and data capabilities to international broadcasters as DRM technology matures.”
The Vietnam demonstration is the latest of many that Harris has sponsored or participated in this year, including those in Mexico, South Africa, China, Thailand, Romania, and Australia. Harris, a charter member of the DRM Steering Board, offers a DRM On-Air Upgrade Kit that is designed to make the digital transition as swift and easy as possible for countries that support the format. With the world’s largest installed base of high-power AM transmitters – including approximately 1,500 DX(r) medium wave transmitters and power blocks worldwide – Harris is in a unique position to propel DRM acceptance.
“The Voice of Vietnam is well known in the radio industry as a forward-looking broadcaster, providing on-air programs for international and domestic markets from both its Vietnam-based transmission facilities and third-party network providers around the world,” said Hall. “Broadcasters like VoV are driving DRM acceptance, and Harris has made an effort to provide strong educational background and technical demonstrations to broadcasters considering DRM. We are privileged to have been involved in this important demonstration and similar ones around the world.”
The Harris DRM On-Air Upgrade Kit features a content server to encode audio and combine it with digital program information to create a single bandwidth-efficient digital bitstream that is sent to the modulator. A DRM modulator situated in a rack beside the transmitter accepts the digitally prepared signal, creates the CODFM signal for transmission,
and provides phase and magnitude signals to the transmitter.
4 October 2005
Radio Australia has re-started its French news service, which closed eight years ago as a result of budget cuts. The service is available in an audio file format, sent to radio stations in New Caledonia, Tahiti and Vanuatu and beamed to the region’s 500,000 French-speaking inhabitants.
‘There has always been a demand for it but budgetary constraints meant that we couldn’t respond to that demand,’ Radio Australia head Jean-Gabriel Manguy said.
The new French news service is named ’24H dans le Pacifique’, announces Radio Australia’s French website (http://www.abc.net.au/ra/francais).
4 October 2005
Japanese internet tycoon Takafumi Horie said his firm, Livedoor, which offers a portal site much like Yahoo along with other internet services, has signed a deal with Qatar-based Al Jazeera to distribute its news online in Japanese. Livedoor will translate several English-language articles by Al Jazeera into Japanese each day but has no plans to provide the broadcaster’s video footage. The contract with Al Jazeera is Horie’s latest effort to bolster Livedoor’s news-providing services and attract more people to his website.
The UK’s Media Guardian reported that veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost is understood to have been signed up by Al Jazeera for its new English-language service. Sir David retired from the BBC in May after presenting a Sunday morning current affairs programme for many years.
4 October 2005
Arqiva is to sign a five-year deal to deliver direct-to-home (DTH) services to CNBC Europe. The Satellite Media Solutions division is to supply backhaul connectivity from CNBC Europes Fleet Place offices, satellite uplink and space segment. CNBC Europe goes live with the new system on 30 September.
Arqiva is a trusted provider for CNBC Europes delivery of news content DTH in the UK and also to link with various cable head-ends across Europe, says John Turner, CNBC Europes director of operations. CNBC Europe already uses the companys services for Occasional Distribution to the Sirius satellite and European VSAT networks links and I am keen to develop the relationship for as long as possible.
John Bozza, Arqivas head of broadcast sales, adds: Our precise understanding not only of CNBC Europes business requirements, but also its product offering, makes Arqiva the ideal satellite media partner.
Arqiva Satellite Media Solutions has operational bases in London, Gerrards Cross, Winchester, Feltham and Bedford. A diverse range of international customers trust Arqiva Satellite Media Solutions to develop and deliver high quality and flexible solutions that include permanent and occasional broadcast services as well as IP, voice, data and digital media networks.
28 September 2005
Inmedia is to rebrand as Arqiva, following its acquisition in July by Arqiva (formerly ntl Broadcast). Inmedia is being merged with Arqivas Satellite and Playout unit to form the Satellite Media Solutions division of the company. The new division will continue to provide broadcast and media solutions including permanent and occasional broadcast services as well as IP, voice, data and digital media networks.
The combined infrastructure of Arqiva is truly impressive and is ideally positioned to serve organisations around the world with innovative solutions for improved business, says Nick Thompson, managing director of Arqiva, Satellite Broadcast Solutions. As a leading UK broadcast solutions company, Arqiva now comprises four teleports with more than 70 major uplinks, plus studios, post production and playout facilities.
Arqiva Satellite Media Solutions has operational bases in London, Gerrards Cross, Winchester, Feltham and Bedford. A diverse range of international customers trust Arqiva Satellite Media Solutions to develop and deliver high quality and flexible solutions that include permanent and occasional broadcast services as well as IP, voice, data and digital media networks.
27 September 2005
The channels, which went on-air in March and April 2005, bring the total of OmniBus-controlled 24-hour news services in Mumbai and Delhi to seven. Sahara TV uses OmniBus applications to control ingest, manage the media flow throughout the facility, and coordinate the operation of a wide range of broadcast devices, including VizRT on-air graphics solutions, Miranda mixers and Leitch video servers and routers.
The entire broadcast infrastructure is tightly integrated to APs ENPS newsroom computer system, which delivers the news playlists to OmniBus via an MOS (Media Object Server) gateway. OmniBus Columbus application checks the integrity of the playlist and the availability of the media, and plays it to air either in a fully automated mode, for the news wheel items, or with automation assist for live news.
OmniBus provides editing, audio control, and V/O functionality at each of 150 journalist workstations, from where journalists can search, view, and manipulate any piece of media in the system, even active feeds. This new agreement not only expands the existing operation to become the largest and most sophisticated
newsroom system in Asia, it also consolidates our long and successful partnership with Sahara, said OmniBus sales manager Iain Wood. The flexibility of the OmniBus system allows Sahara to provide multilingual services for different states across
India, where some 40 different languages are spoken. Obviously, great care has to be taken with the media management as each piece of content can potentially
have many different voiceovers in different languages. OmniBus allows the operators to have full control of the process and precise knowledge of the entire media store and associated metadata.
