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ZTV
SpectraRep and Vitacom have teamed up with Spanish local TV broadcaster ZTV
ZTV distributes broadcast programming across Spain encoding in Windows Media 9 Series
 You're a local TV station that might be small in size but thinks big. You would like to share programmes and link up with other stations across the country that share common interests. Maybe you've even found a similar channel abroad that would be interested in broadcasting your material.
The problem is satellite costs are prohibitive and the dream hits the dust. True? Well, not any more. Thanks to a new venture by SpectraRep, Vitacom and Spanish broadcaster ZTV you now can go global without going broke. All you need is Windows Media® 9 Series and a high speed satellite link or broadband connection.
Like most great discoveries, this came about by chance when the representatives from the three companies bumped into each other in the Microsoft® booth at NAB 2003 and realised the huge potential of Windows Media 9 Series for broadcasters.
SpectraRep envisioned that a TV station could take video content, encode it using Windows Media 9 Series so that it can be sent as a live stream or a pre-encoded file, then deliver it using DVB-S to multiple TV stations at the same time. The IP streams can then be transcoded back to PAL for over-the-air broadcast. This process turns out to be quick and easy. It even enables all the TV stations on the network to simulcast content cost effectively.
The real breakthrough is that SpectraRep has managed to do all this in high resolution using Windows Media 9 Series, so there's no loss of picture quality and there is very little latency. Distributing broadcast-quality images using Windows Media 9 Series means you can save thousands of euros by using less satellite bandwidth or smaller fibre connections.
According to Jay Yass, spokesman for SpectraRep: "This gives any broadcaster a significantly larger viewer region. They can take their content to new audiences countrywide or even globally. This solution opens a new window of opportunity for broadcasters on a low budget, which simply wasn't there before."
Vitacom is a California based company that makes satellite equipment and provides related services. It also finds customers with specific needs and builds the perfect solution for them. When Vitacom saw that SpectraRep could provide the equipment to compress and de-compress pictures at broadcast quality, it soon worked out how to transfer that data via satellite at low cost.
As Salvador Giblas, Vitacom's spokesman says: "If you can compress the pictures you can transfer the same amount of data at a fraction of the time, reducing significantly the duration of your satellite bookings. This immediately means that any company could save up to 50 per cent on satellite bills every month. By the end of the year, you have saved millions."
In fact, Giblas says Vitacom was so pleased with the results it decided to take things further. "Modern broadcasting means you need great flexibility and with that in mind we also devised mobile units," he says. "We've devised a foldable dish just 1.2 metres in diameter. Its two parts are easy and quick to assemble, and it can be placed on a tripod on top of a car to send out your signal. This way, news organisations working with Windows Media 9 Series on their laptops can compress their pictures using SpectraRep's equipment and send them out via satellite using a short booking." Once the pictures are decompressed at the headquarters they can be broadcast live by all the stations on the network via broadband or a Vitacom satellite connection.
The theory has been put into practice by ZTV, a Spanish television station based in Malaga. ZTV came into being as a channel with tourism information for thousands of holiday makers in southern Spain's resorts. It wanted to share programmes with similar channels across Spain, but could not afford the satellite costs on a daily basis. Using the services provided by SpectraRep and Vitacom, it now simulcasts to 15 regional channels across the country.
Juan Antonio Garrido, owner and chairman of ZTV, says that the results have been "awesome". "We never thought this would have been possible," Garrido says. "Small and medium companies work under very tight budgets, and this can seriously limit your ambitions. Using this new technology has enabled ZTV to be the first station in Europe to use broadband to link up several stations for live quality broadcasts. Currently there are some 1,000 local stations all over Spain. What we are doing opens the door for them to be able to work together without even having to book a satellite."
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