Weigel to Launch New Diginet, Me-TV

RENNES, FRANCE: Weigel Broadcasting has standardized on a Thomson channel delivery system for its new Me-TV affiliates. Me-TV, for “Memorable Television,” is a new broadcast diginet based on “classics” like “The Bob Newhart Show,” “M*A*S*H,” “Perry Mason,” and the original “Star Trek.” Affiliates of Me-TV will use a complete solution based on Thomson’s Sapphire broadcast server and ViBE EM2000 encoder.

Me-TV’s library includes series from Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution and CBS Television Distribution, as well as independent series owners and producers. The diginet pulls more than 60 series from the vault. Me-TV is described as a sister network to This TV, a movie diginet launched by MGM and Weigel in 2008. Like This TV, Me-TV is designed to air on the digital subchannels of local TV stations, and is expanding nationally after launching in Chicago.

The system from Thomson Video Networks provides automated time-delay, network program substitution, frame-accurate ingest, local commercial insertion, logos, and an Emergency Alert System. The broadcaster deploys ViBE MPEG-2 encoders at the Me-TV network feed before uplink to Me-TV affiliates, where the Sapphire channel-in-a-box server provides switcher, video server, and branding functionality to complete the end-to-end solution. Weigel’s roll-out of systems to affiliates began in March and will continue through 2011.