Al Jazeera America Launches With Cobalt Terminal Gear

Cobalt's HPF-9000 Frame

NEW YORK—Al Jazeera America launched on-air operations from its New York headquarters supported by a complement of Cobalt Digital modular terminal gear.

The network’s infrastructure comprises 60 of each of Cobalt’s 4-channel 9400 series fiber transmit and receive cards for a total of 240 transmit and 240 receive channels packed into a compact 12 RU/12 HPF-9000 frame configuration. The equipment package also includes 19 frame synchronizers with embed/de-embed, 20 multi-functional 9061 up/down/cross converters, a number of distribution amplifiers, and several openGear OGCP-9000 control panels. In addition, Al Jazeera installed Cobalt’s multipurpose 9901-UDX up/down/cross conversion module to address signal processing requirements, including loudness, audio loudness metering, Dolby encode and decode, color correction, and fiber transmit/receive.

Al Jazeera America’s 23,000 square foot facility, located in mid-town Manhattan, was built out to include advanced technical facilities and an upgraded studio. The network provides both domestic and international news, and is available to more than 40 million households via all the major carriers. The facility supports 12 U.S. bureaus situated in major cities.