Genesis Networks in Grenoble, France, which provides globally managed fiber-optic network services to broadcasters and cable networks worldwide, recently teamed up with digital audio solutions specialist, Digigram, to provide broadcast services to France’s Canal Plus pay-television channel for its coverage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in the UK.
Genesis needed to transmit 10 broadcast quality duplex audio channels (program channels, studio return audio) between South Africa and France, and six duplex channels between Wimbledon and France. Digigram provided a solution based on the IQOYA*SERV/LINK multiple stereo/multichannel IP audio distribution codec.
In this instance, Digigram provided six IQOYA*SERV/LINK devices for a fully redundant contribution system: one “main” unit and a second unit for redundancy purposes for each site (Wimbledon, Paris, South Africa). Digigram states that the flexibility and scalability of the IQOYA*SERV/LINK system meant that a single unit in Paris was able to simultaneously communicate with both London and Johannesburg, thereby handling all 16 duplex channels at once. Additionally, an encoding format for each channel could be selected independently.
According to Abel Leite from Genesis Networks, “Once the channel requirement had been met, the most important criterion for us was reliability. Our World Cup and Wimbledon broadcasts are watched by literally millions of people, so failure is not an option. Clearly we had redundant solutions in place just in case, but the reliability of the Digigram platform combined with the multiple built-in fail-over options was very attractive. Set-up and implementation of the system was straightforward, and the system has proved both flexible and cost-effective. We’d certainly use it again.”
Visit Digigram at www.digigram.com.
