CBS News deployed Sencore’s MRD 3187B receiver decoder for remote network coverage of the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 29. Paired with a high-performance HD encoder, the MRD 3187B delivered MPEG-4 AVC compressed live HD feeds from London for broadcasts of "The Early Show" and "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."
"The royal wedding captivated audiences all over the world and was one of the biggest live events we will cover all year, so it was critical that we acquire the highest quality HD signals with minimal delay," said Mel Olinsky, director of operations at CBS Evening News. "Once again, the Sencore MRD 3187B came through—with low-latency, high-quality MPEG decoding that enabled our New York studio to interact with location sites in near real time."
Beginning Monday, April 25, CBS News added live, on-location wedding coverage to its news programs, with the MRD 3187B providing multiple services for the satellite paths that were transmitted to New York. "The Early Show" began its daily coverage on Monday from the Tower of London, with a single encoder and MRD 3187B receiver decoder providing the primary switched feed and backup feed to the CBS News studios in New York via the network's London news bureau. Beginning Wednesday, April 27, the "CBS Evening News" began including live shots from Westminster Abbey via the Sencore MRD 3187B paths.
On the wedding day, CBS News provided live special coverage of the wedding from 4:00-9:00 a.m. EDT from both Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, and also broadcast the "CBS Evening News" and a primetime special live from London. For the wedding coverage from Westminster Abbey, the network used four broadcast paths with the MRD 3187B providing the ASI stream to New York for decoding.
"For live, remote coverage of global events, the ability to provide low-latency, high-quality feeds is critical for large news organizations such as CBS News," said Jack Vickers, senior product manager at Sencore. "We're pleased that Sencore solutions continue to meet CBS News' exacting requirements for picture quality as it brings exciting event coverage into the living rooms of viewers around the world."
