Harmonic announced today that Sky Italia is deploying Harmonic’s compression and IP-based statistical multiplexing technologies for its direct broadcast satellite service.
Sky Italia’s new headend architecture uses Harmonic’s DiviCom Electra 1000 standard-definition (SD) MPEG-2 encoders, the ProStream stream processing platform with DiviTrackIP distributed statistical multiplexing, and the NMX Digital Service Manager.
“The ability to geographically distribute our infrastructure across multiple sites, connected by IP, was a key requirement for our new digital headend,” said Massimo Bertolotti, compression and transmission manager of Sky Italia.
Sky Italia, which is a subsidiary of News Corp., serves 4.5 million subscribers, is the world’s fifth-largest satellite provider and is Italy’s largest pay-TV operator.
Harmonic also announced today that it has added MPEG-2 SD digital program insertion (DPI) for its IP-enabled ProStream 1000 stream processing platform.
The ProStream 1000 with DPI technology supports standard digital ad insertion protocols (SCTE 30 and SCTE 35) and is designed to interoperate with third-party systems.
Combined with Harmonic’s IP-enabled CLEARcut offline content preparation offering and StreamLiner video servers, the ProStream 1000 with DPI provides users a one-stop platform for seamless, real-time splicing of MPEG-2 SD video streams. Harmonic said that DPI technology can be integrated into currently installed ProStream 1000 systems and is available via license upgrade.
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• Sky Italia deploys Harmonic’s gear
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