April 2017 DISTRIBUTION 37
WTA awards SpeedCast and Net Insight
The World Teleport Association ( WTA ) has named SpeedCast as the Independent Teleport Operator of the Year for 2017 .
A global satellite communications and network service provider , SpeedCast offers managed network services in more than 90 countries and a global maritime network serving customers worldwide . The company also supports a worldwide network of 40 sales and support offices , 41 teleport operations and more than 5,000 links on land and at sea supporting mission-critical applications .
Also awarded at WTA ’ s 22nd annual Teleport Awards for Excellence is Net Insight , whose ScheduALL Connector solution won the Teleport Technology of the Year award .
ScheduALL Connector unites ScheduALL systems across the enterprise and supply chain , providing real-time access to resource inventories . Providing a platform for self-provisioned customer bookings , ScheduALL Connector allows broadcast and transmission companies to permit their customers to book inventory and resources directly , without having to negotiate e-mails , phone calls or spreadsheets .
Robert Bell , executive director , WTA , explained : “ SpeedCast and Net Insight represent excellence in an industry that is technology-intensive and working hard to serve customer demands that are evolving by the year . Leadership in the industry takes agility , flexibility and scale , and both companies exhibit these in abundance .”
In a separate development , WTA has also announced that Arqiva Satellite & Media ’ s Chalfont Grove Teleport in London has achieved Tier 4 Full Certification under WTA ’ s Teleport Certification Programme .
Tier 4 is the highest level of certification available under the programme , which proceeds through two phases .
Teleport operators apply for provisional certification by completing a + 170-item questionnaire and submitting this self-reported data to WTA , which then analyses the data based on standards established by its Certification Committee , and issues a Provisional Certification .
The teleport then has six months to achieve Full Certification , which requires a thorough site inspection by a WTA auditor to validate the information in the questionnaire and identify additional factors that may positively or negatively affect the score .
Full certification is issued at Tier number 1 through to 4 , with number 4 representing the highest degree of excellence , and remains in effect for three years .
Bell concluded : “ The Arqiva name has long been synonymous with the highest quality of teleport operation . The value of certification is in providing independent , third-party confirmation of the engineering and operational factors that contribute to that quality .”
Terrestrial TV and the evolution of video delivery in Asia-Pacific
by fabio murra
A revolutionary feat when it launched in 1927 , analogue terrestrial TV gave viewers a few basic sets of channels that were at first regulated by a government body , providing simple , low-quality picture to viewers through a square , ostentatious box . The launch of terrestrial channels resulted in a stark increase in consumer demand for content , which in turn led to the deployment of more terrestrial towers to enable rural consumers to access basic , PAL television throughout Asia .
Fast-forward 90 years and the situation has radically changed : the size of the box has shrunk , commercial TV channels run alongside public ones and picture quality has become almost life-like .
In Asia , this seismic change killed the hegemony of the terrestrial market as IPTV , over-thetop ( OTT ), satellite and terrestrial platforms all compete to enable consumers to access high-quality
content — both in HD and 4K / Ultra HD ( UHD ). Asia has also been quick to move away from traditional , linear programming to time-shifted viewing habits enabled by IP-based services .
According to Media Partners Asia , online video revenues across Asia-Pacific are set to skyrocket from US $ 12.8 billion in 2016 to $ 35 billion by 2021 . This , alongside consumer appetite for mobile video , makes it a prime market for IPTV and OTT service providers such as Netflix , Hulu and iflix , who are investing heavily in mobile video .
The shift towards IP-based platforms has opened up opportunities for delivering and consuming content in new and innovative ways . As a result , traditional terrestrial TV is expected to decline further in Asia-Pacific — dropping from 315.3 million households to just six million by 2021 , according to Digital TV Research .
This would traditionally have been a step back for rural areas , where consumers were heavily reliant on terrestrial towers to access video . This does not have to be the case ; V-Nova ’ s Perseus video compression software solution has been deployed by India ’ s mobileonly service provider FastFilmz to provide the first mobile video service accessible in all parts of the country , including those covered only by a 2G mobile signal .
The service , which has proved so popular that it is now integrated within Airtel ’ s bundles , shows that there is room for innovation in delivering entertainment to rural parts of the world , even when traditional infrastructure is unable to support heightened consumer demand for content .
More recently , we have partnered with Thaicom to showcase 4K / UHD-quality distribution of premium live sports over satellite at a breakthrough low data rate to enable operators to offer cost-effective , premium live sports services in 4K / UHD . This new development enables us to close the 4K / UHD live sports loop , effectively enabling the TV and media industry to tackle one of its main challenges with a simple software add-on that runs on off-the-shelf hardware .
These deployments provide the impetus the industry needs to develop new services , and opens new doors to the distribution of content across all types of platforms , in any resolution and across any network . We are laying the bricks for more immersive experiences leveraging today ’ s infrastructure , which will become even more crucial as Asia prepares to adopt bitrate consuming services such as 8K and augmented / virtual reality .
By solving the bandwidth challenge linked to these new services , we are opening the door to more , better quality experiences for content-hungry audiences .
Fabio Murra is SVP Marketing of V-Nova .
Measat and partners demonstrate 4K / UHD HDR transmission
At last month ’ s Asia-Pacific Broadcasting ( ABU ) Digital Broadcasting Symposium ( DBS ) held in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia , Measat demonstrated the transmission of 4K / Ultra HD ( UHD ) high dynamic range ( HDR ) over satellite using the hybrid-log gamma ( HLG ) standard .
The showcase content was provided by Celebrities Management from its Travelxp 4K | UHD channel and conformed to the DVB 4K / UHD standard with Rec . 2020 colour space .
Played out by a 4K / UHD playout server , the content was encoded and compressed using the HEVC / H . 265 compression standard by a 4K / UHD encoder at 50fps with a bit depth of 10bits .
It was then transmitted via the Measat-3 hotbird satellite using the DVB-S2X broadcast standard at 18Mbps , and received by a receiveonly antenna at the venue of ABU DBS 2017 . Decoding was carried out on a 4K / UHD HEVC / H . 265 decoder that supported the HLG standard , before the final display was shown at the Measat booth .
Yau Chyong Lim , COO , Measat , said : “ Measat , by working with leading technical partners , continues to bring new satellite broadcast technology to the market . Broadcasters interested to benefit from the HLG standard are now assured of a proven distribution solution with Measat and our partners .”
Besides Celebrities Management , the other partners include Ateme , BBright , Binasat and Cisco .
Jason Na Bon Tiam , executive director , Binasat , said : “ With new 4K / UHD services coming into the market , we look forward to continue growing and are ready to support broadcasters with transmission solutions that can reliably deliver services to the end-customer .”
The demonstration at ABU DBS 2017 highlights that it is about better pixels , rather than just more pixels , emphasised Prashant Chothani , CEO of Travelxp 4K | UHD . “ This is what is going to really make a big difference — HDR with wide colour gamut . It ’ s truly as close to what we
At last month ’ s ABU DBS 2017 , Measat and partners demonstrated the transmission of 4K / Ultra HD ( UHD ) high dynamic range ( HDR ) over satellite using the hybrid-log gamma ( HLG ) standard .
see with our human vision — more immersive than ever .
“ We are among the first ones globally to adopt HLG HDR , which allows the same signal to be seen as SDR ( standard dynamic range ) in SDR TV sets , and in HDR on HDRenabled TV sets .”