Broadcast News

Bookmark and Share
26/01/2011

Portugal's TVI Upgrades With ATEME

Televisão Independente (TVI) of Portugal is upgrading its Satellite News Gathering (SNG) vehicles with ATEME's H.264/MPEG-4 capable contribution encoding system to establish a future proof platform for covering sporting and other outside events in HD.
TVI has started by upgrading one of its SNG vehicles to ATEME's CM4101/DR8400 broadcast contribution encoder/decoder pair in order to provide HD coverage of football matches for worldwide distribution by the European Broadcast Union (EBU/Eurovision) satellite services.
TVI is encoding the video in MPEG-2 HD 4:2:2 today, but the ATEME solution supports the state-of-the-art H.264/MPEG-4 HD 4:2:2 10-bit encoding scheme as the broadcast industry migrates to that over the next few years. This will happen because MPEG-4 4:2:2 10-bit enables broadcasters, pay TV operators, and content owners, to maintain the highest quality throughout the production and contribution process, avoiding artifacts such as colour bleeding and smearing that can have a significant impact on the consumer's viewing experience in the case of HD content.
José A. Nabais, TVI's Chief Technology Officer, said: "The availability of MPEG-2 HD 4:2:2, H.264 HD 4:2:2 and the possibility of upgrading to use 10-bit resolution, were key factors in our decision to select ATEME." TVI also evaluated other compression vendors but another key factor was ATEME's excellent performance in terms of image quality at low bit rates, Nabais added.
TVI's decision also reflects ATEME's growing status as a market leader in the emerging H.264/MPEG04 10-bit contribution arena, which requires products that are robust and easy to deploy, with the highest quality of field support. Nabais said: "Their commercial approach was good, the technical support during the tests was important and the equipment performs well in the field."
TVI's deployment also highlights ATEME's growing profile across Portugal and Spain, and the success of its marketing campaign there led by Alvino Cordeiro, the company's sales manager for Southern Europe. TVI is part of the larger Spanish media group Promotora de Informaciones S.A. (PRISA), which also owns other TV channels that have taken note of the ATEME deployment.
Alvino said: "At some point the whole broadcasting industry will move wholesale to H.264/MPEG-4 4:2:2 10-bit for contribution, and we believe we are best placed to exploit that movement as it occurs. Our platform is already being adopted by major broadcasters and operators not just in Europe, but around the world."
H.264/MPEG-4 4:2:2 bit encoding itself is already being adopted at increasing rate, driven by the growth in HD content, which places greater demands on the whole video production, contribution and delivery cycle because of its higher resolution. Indeed, TVI has just begun its own transition. Nabais said: "This will be an ongoing project. We already have some transmissions in MPEG-4."
With the 1080p version of HD becoming accepted as the prevailing standard in many countries at double the resolution of the alternative 720p or 1080i, and 3D programming emerging to raise the bar higher still, broadcasters and operators will have reduced tolerance for legacy MPEG-2 contribution systems that are more likely to introduce artefacts during encoding and decoding cycles. Alvino said: "Most new deployments, like TVI's, are ready for H.264/MPEG-4 4:2:2 10-bit even though they are not using it widely yet. Now that most operators and broadcasters have already decided they will install future proof encoding systems, they are focusing on choosing the best vendor for support and product quality. That is why ATEME is in such a strong position with a solution designed for H.264/MPEG-4 4:2:2 10-bit from the ground up."
(KMcA)
Solidmate Ltd Memory Card Hire London

Top Related Stories
Click here for the latest broadcast news stories.

18/04/2023
disguise Brings Motion Graphics to Live-to-Air Broadcast
At this year's NAB show, disguise, a virtual production technology pioneer, is showcasing an Unreal Engine (UE) integration to bring new motion graphi
12/03/2024
Ikegami USA To Display Range Of Broadcast Quality Camera Systems
Celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year, Ikegami USA is to demonstrate the latest versions of its wide range of broadcast quality camera systems an
06/03/2024
Miller Tripods Unveils A Variety Of Broadcast And Cinema Solutions
Miller Tripods has unveiled its SkyX 8 fluid head, CinX 8 and 9 large fluid heads and CinX 20, 23 and 25 smaller fluid heads, CompassXV and AirV fluid
06/03/2024
Timeline Deploys Video Broadcast's Camera Control
Timeline is using Videosys Broadcast's camera control to deliver coverage of the British Basketball League championships, which are currently screened
29/02/2024
Presteigne Broadcast Hire Selects Custom Consoles Module-R Control Room Desks
Presteigne Broadcast Hire has chosen Custom Consoles Module-R control room desks for a newly completed gallery at its southern-UK office in Crawley. T
22/03/2024
Tolka To Unveil Range Of Broadcast Media Products
Tolka Telecommunications is to promote its extensive range of broadcast media products and services at the April 14-17 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas. Hig
13/03/2024
Playbox Neo Announces Refinements To Its Broadcast Playout And Channel Branding Solutions
PlayBox Neo has announced new refinements to its range of broadcast playout and channel branding solutions. These include additional creative function
29/08/2023
Ateme To Unveil New Ateme+ OTT Packaging Service
Ateme is to introduce its new Ateme+ OTT packaging service at IBC2023. Ateme+, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution from Ateme, will now offer pu
14/05/2013
Portugal's TVI Selects Snell ICE Solution
Snell has announced news that Portugal's most popular broadcaster, TVI, has deployed its ICE channel-in-a-box solution to support two new channels: TV
21/11/2023
Voila Selects Ateme To Supply A Disaster Recovery Solution
Volia has selected Ateme to supply a Disaster Recovery solution for its packaging and CDN platform. Volia is using the Ateme NEA packaging and CDN sol
14/04/2023
Ateme Teams Up With Fraunhofer
Fraunhofer IIS and Ateme have announced they facilitate the delivery of personalized and immersive sound experiences with the integration of Fraunhofe
20/06/2023
Ateme's OTT Solutions Selected To Power OTT Headend Of IndiHome TV
Ateme has announced that its OTT solutions have been selected to power the OTT headend of IndiHome TV — part of Telkom Indonesia's nationwide fixed br
05/02/2024
Ateme Announces Four Presentations
Ateme has announced four presentations for ACM Mile High Video 2024, taking place from February 11th to 14th in Denver, Marriott DTC. At the event, At
10/11/2023
Vectra Changes Provider Of Video Processing And Delivery Solutions
Vectra has changed its provider of video processing and delivery solutions. With the cooperation of PROEXE and Ateme, the operator is improving its se
14/03/2023
Ateme Completes AWS ISV Accelerate Program
Ateme has completed the AWS ISV Accelerate program, a co-sell, highly selective program for independent software vendors providing software solutions