TV 2 Norway and Norwia Tackle Vasaloppet

Norwia AS, developer and manufacturer of optical distribution products to the broadcast and communications markets, announces that Norway’s leading private broadcaster TV 2 selected the Norwia miniHUB platform at Vasaloppet in Sweden. Labelled the oldest, the longest, and the biggest participated cross-country ski race in the world.
The site survey from TV 2 included 3 different locations with distances of 15km and 45km between broadcast transmission sites. The options were to use localized production trucks at each location, and provide sufficient staff to run each site with transmission back to a local point via satellite services. The other option was to provide fiber connectivity between the sites and use remote production from two of the sites back to the master site.
The result was that TV 2 chose the miniHUB optical distribution due to cost of operation. miniHUB could give these results with its configuration flexibility and extremely good optical budget. Using the miniHUB system meant that no remote truck facility had to be used with only minimal associated camera equipment and minimal personnel needed for the event. This was a huge saving to TV 2 and paved the way for more remote productions in the future.
Bård Egil Torgersen from TV2 - Norway, remarks that; “Once we weighed up the options between remote broadcasting and production truck installation, it was quite obvious that the Norwia miniHUB optical distribution system was an easy choice. The miniHUB system is like no other on the market today, with its AutoSFP™ technology. This makes life easy out in the field, and shows the flexibility and smartness of the Norwia miniHUB system”.
The miniHUB system that TV 2 used was an 8 channel CWDM system. TV 2 used the NEW 8 channel ultra low loss CWDM filter set from Norwia. This gave only 2.6db loss over the multiplexer pair for the entire CWDM link.
With some smart optical design the third location was feed optically passive from the 45km CWDM link. This saved the need for a second CWDM system to be installed. 2 CWDM channels were fed a further 15km with no electrical refresh. This meant that the total distance for the optical network was 60km. With the available optical budget, this link could have supported up to 90km of HD-SDI uncompressed video.
CWDM is an effective solution to deliver multiple uncompressed channels on one fiber over a distance. The distance varies in typically applications from 100 metres up to 90 kilometres.
All CWDM filters from Norwia are delivered in a ruggedized metal casing that can fit internally into the miniHUB sub-rack or stand alone if necessary. Norwia’s CWDM filters use the commonly available LC/UPC optical connector that is recommended by SMPTE. The Ultra low loss CWDM filter provides from 8 to 16 channels at an affordable price point, which enables this type of technology to be used in new applications.
Lars Erik Eriksen, Chief Technology Officer – Norwia, remarks, “The Norwia and TV 2 solution at Vasaloppet shows the ultimate flexibility and ruggedized reliability of the miniHUB optical distribution system for events. This solution, compared to traditional broadcast methods, gives lower cost, easy setup and simplified maintenance”
Norwia
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