Thomson Video Networks' ViBE EM4000 Upgraded

Thomson Video Networks has released an update for its ViBE EM4000 premium HD/SD encoder featuring Flextream 2.0. With support for Flextream 2.0, the EM4000 enables users to optimise bandwidth usage by including non-video components in a statistical multiplexing pool. It also includes SCTE104 handling for targeted advertising, giving broadcasters a new capability for developing new advertising revenue streams.

The ViBE EM4000 offers a density of eight HD MPEG-4 AVC channels in a 1-RU chassis. Earlier this year, Thomson Video Networks announced an all-new broadcast-grade SD-to-HD conversion capability for the ViBE EM4000 that enables broadcasters to combine premium HD MPEG-4 compression with the ability to upscale an SD video source to HD. Now, with the addition of Flextream 2.0, the ViBE EM4000 will enable operators to re-allocate bandwidth for service components such as audio, teletext, subtitling, and closed captioning, thereby improving overall video quality and boosting statistical multiplexing performance while simplifying operations through easier configuration and monitoring.

The new ViBE EM4000 with Flextream 2.0 is targeted to all segments of the broadcast industry in which statistical multiplexing is used, including satellite, DTT, cable, and telco operations. The new functionality is also suitable for IPTV deployments to help maintain video quality when non-video components are present. The first non-video components to be supported by the ViBE EM4000's new Flextream 2.0 functionality include DVB subtitling and audio description.

Geared to all broadcasting customers, the targeted advertising capability in the ViBE EM4000 includes SCTE104 handling that allows identifications to go through, signal conditioning at the splice point, and queuing of SCTE104 messages for back-to-back ads.

"With our ViBE EM4000, we continue to push the boundaries of compression performance and functionality to deliver the industry's most advanced solution for premium encoding, tailored to the evolving needs of our customers," said Eric Gallier, vice president, marketing, Thomson Video Networks. "For instance, the new SCTE104 handling feature, the result of a direct request from two of Europe's largest satellite DTH satellite providers, enables customers to develop new revenues through highly targeted, premium advertising. And with Flextream 2.0 support, users can lower bandwidth costs and free up bandwidth to improve picture quality or add a channel per multiplex — a valuable capability, especially as available bit rate becomes more and more scarce."

The latest version of the ViBE EM4000 will be available October 2015.

Current ViBE EM4000 customers will be able to upgrade their systems via a software upgrade.

Image: ViBE EM4000 Premium HD/SD Encoder

www.thomson-networks.com

(JP)