ATEME sets up first video head end to bring Olympic pictures to Asia

French video compression specialist ATEME is setting up the first HD video headend that will relay coverage of the London Olympics to Asia Pacific.

ATEME’s Kyrion encoders have been selected by GlobeCast for deployment with a major cable operator in the region. GlobeCast will use the video headend, firstly at the European Football championships in Poland starting in June, before moving the platform to London for the Olympics in July. The video will be transmitted to GlobeCast distribution hub in Hong-Kong over optical fiber, to serve its client’s Asian subscribers. After the Olympics, the platform will be will be retained at GlobeCast’s Singapore premises for future deployment, either in the field or at its facilities.

GlobeCast evaluated a number of encoding vendors, and chose ATEME partly because of its strong presence and support on the ground over the period of the Olympic Games in London, according to Shakunt Malhotra, GlobeCast Senior Director, Engineering & Projects. But the biggest factor was HD encoding quality.

GlobeCast was also impressed with ATEME’s high level of overall support, which it believes will help attract other TV operators in the region to take its Olympic service.

“We sometimes get last minute requests just one or two months before an event begins,” said Malhotra. “Our presence there and support from ATEME is going to be crucial for that.”

The headend turnkey design includes ATEME Kyrion encoders, IRDs (Integrated Receiver Decoders), multiplexers, routers, all with in-built redundancy controlled by an open vendor Dataminer Network Management System.