27 January 2005
As reported on the ABU web site, Radio Taiwan International announced on 27 January that it will stop five foreign-language broadcasts as part of its efforts to streamline the company.
The five languages – Korean, Burmese, Arabic, Mongolian and Tibetan – will cease broadcasting from 1 February.
Chairman Lin Feng-cheng said that the company, with a workforce of 488 people, currently broadcasts in 18 languages daily worldwide and is the only international broadcasting station in Taiwan.
17 June 2004
Harris Corporation’s Broadcast Communications Division is introducing the Synchrony(tm) adapter, its second-generation DVB-T single frequency network (SFN) headend adapter, at BroadcastAsia. Synchrony is ideally suited for DVB-T operators or integrators who are looking to build a DVB-T SFN. It can be used worldwide where DVB-T is a standard for DTV transmission. The Synchrony adapter prepares the MPEG transport stream at the output of the DVB-T multiplexer to be transmitted by DVB-T transmitters in single frequency network conditions, i.e., transmission of the same content at exactly the same time on exactly the same frequency. To achieve this, the Synchrony adapter receives a 1pps time reference and a 10MHz clock reference from a GPS receiver and computes time and control information to produce the Mega-frame Initialization Packet (MIP). MIP information is inserted in the MPEG-2 transport stream and used by transmitters to synchronize the modulation process. Another new product is the Gigabit Ethernet module, a new plug-in module for Harris’ NetVX(tm) Networking System. This new module supports video over IP for rich media content distributors.
Harris also announced that two Taiwan terrestrial broadcast channels and one Taiwan cable channel have chosen Harris Corporation, Broadcast Communication Division’s ADC-100 Automation System to update and expand their facilities. Taiwan Television (TTV), one of the terrestrial television channels in Taiwan, will use Harris as it transitions its turnkey, four-channel playout system from analogue to digital. The new system has main and back-up Pinnacle servers for full server redundancy, with two program and two commercial video servers. Program content is cached from multiple VTR machines housed in a Flexicart via the Harris ADC-100 automation control. This is also the first time in Taiwan that DVB multi-lingual subtitling systems have been incorporated.
In India, leading business channel CNBC-TV18 has purchased its second ADC-100(tm) automation system from Harris Corporation’s Broadcast Communications Division for its new facility in Mumbai. This follows the successful Harris installation at its playout facility in New Delhi for CNBC-TV18’s English Business News Channel. Both installations were co-coordinated through Harris’ distributor, Ideal Broadcasting Partners. The Harris ADC-100 system will fully automate the control and playout of program material for the soon-to-be-launched Hindi Business News Channel. The transmission storage system will be comprised of Seachange servers under Harris automation control.
5 February 2004
Harris Corporation recently completed the fourth in a series of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) digital radio demonstrations over the medium wave broadcast band for officials at Guang Dong Radio, Zhu Hai, China. Guang Dong Radio runs 80 radio stations, and serves more than 60 million listeners in southern China. An existing Harris DX 10 medium wave AM radio transmitter was converted to DRM for the nine-day digital broadcast demonstration at the Zhu Hai transmission site.
The tests demonstrate the cost effectiveness and ease of conversion to high-quality DRM performance for Harris DX(R) MW radio transmitters. According to Don Spragg, director of high-power radio and programmes for Harris Corporation’s Broadcast Communications Division, Harris’ DX series AM transmitters can be prepared for DRM transmission in an easy, one-hour upgrade session.
Harris has the largest installed base of DRM-ready, AM transmitters with more than 1,000 DX series, solid-state Medium Wave AM radio transmitters installed worldwide. DRM field-testing has been completed on DX transmitters from power levels of 10-kilowatts to 200-kilowatts.
Harris Corporation is a member of the AIB.
