Thomson will provide DVB-H broadcast technology to Sistema Mass Media (SMM), a branch of Russia’s AFK Sistema that is set to launch a mobile multimedia service. For this service, initially available in Moscow and in 16 other Russian cities with populations over one million, Thomson has provided the technology to distribute the content by satellite from Moscow to the other regional transmitters, as well as the headend platform, writes Andy Stout.
“We wanted to get our mobile television service on air quickly, and turned to Thomson as we knew they had the capability to deliver a complex system when we needed it,” said Dr. Shub, deputy general and chief technical officer of SMM. “In particular, Thomson was the only company able to provide a cost-effective satellite distribution system as well as the headend infrastructure.”
To deliver as many as 16 channels on a single multiplex, while retaining good image quality, SMM turned to Thomson to provide statistical multiplexing and time slicing technology to optimse the available bandwidth. The Thomson solution uses tight integration between the ViBE mobile television encoders and the Opal DVB-H IP encapsulator to dynamically vary the compression ratio on each channel and manage the time slicing, guaranteeing the best possible quality across the whole bouquet.
