Viasat Broadcasting Modernises With Argosy

A leading international supplier of HD broadcast, cables and studio infrastructure products, Argosy, has supplied a range of its products at Viasat Broadcasting UK Limited’s playout centre in West Drayton, London.
This installation forms part of a refurbishment programme by Viasat to overhaul its Central Apparatus Room (CAR) to support the future rollout of its high-definition channels from its London facility.
The central component of the CAR upgrade was a Harris Platinum router. The Argosy equipment provided the infrastructure needed to support this replacement router and included Argosy's IMAGE 1000 HD video cable, connectors, mains distributions units (MDUs) and an array of jack fields.
These products provide the infrastructure backbone to support the playout facilities of over 32 channels from the UK, including one high-definition channel. Some of the Argosy equipment also supports a compliance logging and off-air system that forms part of the refurbishment project.
"We chose Argosy equipment for a number of reasons but a significant factor was the breadth and quality of their product offering — particularly their 3Gb/s 1080p compliant products that will enable us to future proof our infrastructure against upcoming technological advancements," said Martin Lewerth, Chief Technical Officer at MTG/Viasat Broadcasting.
"Argosy had a solid understanding of our business and workflow requirements and was able to deliver the high-quality products needed to support the future rollout of our SD and HD bouquets - and they did so on time, and within budget."
The installation at Viasat uses a large quantity of Argosy’s most popular range of IMAGE HD video cables.
This cable surpasses the requirements of SMPTE 292M and is widely used in worldwide HD installations and has one of the most enviable track records in the industry.
IMAGE cables are designed to maximise operational bandwidth while offering the lowest possible return and attenuation loss. With its highly-regarded international reputation among engineers and systems designers alike, IMAGE combines superb quality, reliability and durability with consistent high performance that is perfect for all types of installations however large or small.
"We are delighted to have provided the infrastructure backbone at the Viasat facility as this is exactly the environment where our products truly excel,” said Mike Purnell, Director at Argosy.
"Our equipment is stringently tested to ensure that it delivers the operational robustness and superior quality required for such a mission-critical application while at the same time providing a real return on investment for clients like Viasat."
Viasat Broadcasting is the largest business area within the international entertainment broadcasting group Modern Times Group MTG AB. MTG's Viasat Broadcasting is the largest free-TV and satellite premium pay-TV operator in Scandinavia and the Baltics, and operates free-TV channels in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Ghana and a DTH platform in Ukraine as well as pay-TV channels in Central & Eastern Europe and in the United States. MTG is the largest shareholder in Russia’s largest independent television broadcaster CTC Media (Nasdaq: CTCM) and MTG’s TV assets have 125 million viewers in 30 countries. MTG is also the number one commercial radio operator in the Nordic and Baltic regions.
Argosy has a wide complement of products which includes its most popular range of IMAGE HD video cables, connectors, fibre optic cables and accessories, high density HD video patch panels, MDUs, routers, audio jack fields, rack systems, KVM switches, and Sonarae, its audio monitoring system as well as an array of video accessories.
Further information is available at: www.argosycable.com.
(KMcA/BMcc)