Canal Overseas Uses Wohler Closed-Caption Encoder/Decoder

PANAORMAdtv, the video products division of Wohler Technologies Inc, has announced that Canal Oversea, a division of leading French broadcast group Canal+, is using the HDCC-200A HD/SD-SDI closed-captioning bridge to enable efficient handling and storage of World System Teletext (WST) subtitle data within an HD/SD playout infrastructure.
By encoding subtitles within an HD ingest workflow and subsequently decoding those subtitles back at the time of playout, this new card supports a single cost-effective video ingest and playout workflow regardless of the availability of subtitles. It also adds to the bottom line by eliminating the need for duplication of SD and HD video storage.
Gino Ma-Paw Youn, Technical Manager at Canal Overseas, said: "The teletext data solution provided by Wohler perfectly met our project's functional specifications and constraints. We were searching for an innovative solution for managing WST subtitles with HD material and the Wohler closed-captioning bridge helped us optimise this process within our new HD broadcast facilities. The Wohler system is easy to implement and use, and we consider it to be the most efficient, cost-saving solution with respect to our needs."
Canal Overseas uses 11 HDCC-200A units to embed WST data in the HD-SDI signal (VANC) during ingest. Six programmes are simultaneously recorded from external HD feeds with SD and the VBI-related signal, from external SD feeds upconverted during the ingest process, or from HD tape programmes with EBU subtitle files and subsequently stored on an HD broadcast server.
On playout, Canal Overseas uses 16 HDCC-200A bridges to extract the HD-VANC data and re-encode it as coventional VBI teletext subtitling into a parallel SD-SDI signal downconverted from HD. The SC-VBI subtitles are then either displayed for local monitoring (preview channels), converted into DVB teletext subtitles on the downconverted SD transmitted channels, or converted into DVB subtitling on HD-transmitted channels.
This solution, installed at Canal Overseas HD facilities outside Paris, simplifies playout of various programmes on 14 different channels transmitted by satellite to West Africa, Polynesia, the Caribbean, Caledonia, Reunion and Mauritius. The cost-saving system allows Canal Overseas to store content only in HD, rather than both SD and HD, while maintaining playout in both formats. A spare kit, including two additional Wohler units, provides backup for the broadcaster's subtitling operations.
Compliant with all broadcast standards, Wohler's compact HDCC-200A closed-caption encoder/decoder bridge accepts HD/SD-SDI, WST, or live data and automatically formats teletext data for insertion into the HD-VANC space, after which it may be recorded onto storage, distributed over a facility's digital video network, or decoded back to WST, WSS and GPI data onto the SD-SDI output stream.
The Wohler HDCC-200A was sold to Canal Overseas through UK-based SysMedia.
Further information is available at: www.canal-overseas.com and www.wohler.com.
(KMcA/JM)