Arqiva Roll-Out International High Definition Platform

Arqiva have announced that it will implement a new High Definition (HD) video platform to provide complete turn-around services for Occasional Use broadcast customers.
Arqiva is one of the first broadcast supply houses to offer MPEG-4 compression services on an occasional-use basis. The company said that this will deliver flexible and cost-effective distribution and contribution between the US and the rest of the world.
Arqvia's Washington Teleport will take feeds in any format, uplinking to any of the company's ten international teleports and including connectivity to Arqiva's own global terrestrial fibre network.
The combination of either MPEG-4 or MPEG-2 compression with DVB-S2 modulation will maximise bandwidth utilisation. The platform will allow Standard Definition (SD) broadcasters to begin a progressive transition to HD satellite delivery.
The new platform will apply the latest technologies to provide wide-ranging services including up- and down-conversions between Standard and High Definition. Customers will also benefit from frame-rate conversion between 60 and 50 fields per second, format conversion between 1080i and 720p, as well as audio format conversion.
ASI turns, Aspect Ratio conversion, encoding and BISS (Basic Interoperable Scrambling System) or RAS (Remote Authorisation System) encryption will also be offered to complete a comprehensive solution.
The platform infrastructure and service offering will launch in July 2008.
Simon Thrush, Senior Vice President for Arqiva in the USA, said: "This will be an invaluable resource for any broadcaster looking to transmit in HD on an occasional-use basis. The process will be automated and seamless, with the added advantage of unrivalled connectivity through Arqiva's worldwide infrastructure - especially into the UK and Europe."
He continued: "With so many important political, sporting and cultural events scheduled for the second half of 2008, we are very excited to be delivering a service which makes life simpler for our Occasional Use customers, giving them cost-effective access to HD's superior picture and sound quality whenever they need it.
"Arqiva's new platform will certainly have a very positive impact on their operational resources and offers them tremendous potential to save time and money."
Arqiva provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio and wireless communications in the UK and has a growing presence in Ireland, mainland Europe and the USA.
The company has headquarters in Hampshire, with other major UK offices in London, Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire.
Major customers include: ITV, Channel 4, Five, the BBC, BSkyB, Classic FM, the five UK mobile operators, the RNLI and the Metropolitan Police.
Further information is available at: www.arqiva.com.
(KMcA/JM)