German public broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), part of ARD, has ordered the Kyrion DR5000 IRD (Integrated Receiver Decoder) from ATEME. The Kyrion DR5000 is ATEME’s latest hardware Integrated Receiver Decoder, dedicated to professional contribution over satellite and IP/ASI networks. HR will be deploying several DR5000 IRDs in the coming weeks for monitoring and decoding DVB-ASI and some digital terrestrial transmissions from mobile equipment in the field installed in cars, motorbikes and helicopters. The IRDs, which are MPEG-4 4:2:2 10-bit capable and support the highest quality HDTV feeds, will be used largely to support regional, national and international sporting events including cycling, ironman competitions in July, the Frankfurt marathon in October and handball competitions and ski jump competitions over the following winter. Hessischer Rundfunk’s head of satellite program distribution, Dieter Hachenberger, said: “The key reason for our choice was the high quality specifications of the device and ATEME’s ability to demonstrate the IRD’s capabilities under field conditions before we committed to buy. The DR5000 has every input and output we need, and its small size – half that of the previous DR8400 – fits easily into the limited rackspace of our SNG (satellite newsgathering) vehicles. HR was highly impressed with the performance and robustness of the product during testing and the support it received from ATEME. Our experience with the Kyrion IRDs has always been very positive. They function without any issues in different modes and with different encoders.” Nicolas Moreau, senior product marketing manager at ATEME, said: “The Kyrion DR5000 is the result of major technological advances by ATEME that deliver significant improvements in performance, footprint and weight compared with competitive products. This translates into a long list of objective and measurable gains when compared to the market standard product from other well known encoding vendors. These gains include a rapid boot up time of eight seconds, compared with 66 seconds from ATEME’s principle competitor and yet just half the power consumption in full 10-bit operation at 36W compared to 70W. Weight is also just half at 3.4 Kg versus 7 Kg and a greatly reduced depth of 310mm rather than 530mm.” www.ateme.com
