The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) has selected Newtec to upgrade its members infrastructure to bring the Olympic Games to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for the first time in High Definition. The infrastructure upgrades will allow ASBU’s members to receive live Olympic multilateral feeds and news channels in HD and will […]
The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) has selected Newtec to upgrade its members infrastructure to bring the Olympic Games to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for the first time in High Definition.
The infrastructure upgrades will allow ASBU’s members to receive live Olympic multilateral feeds and news channels in HD and will also turnaround the HD signals to provide simultaneous SD broadcast (simulcast). Content from the Olympic Games will be ingested into the central archive of the ASBU Multimedia Exchange Network over Satellite (MENOS), allowing members to access the content at a later time and eliminating the need for each member to individually archive all feeds. This will result in significant cost reductions and operational streamlining.
Speaking about the project, Slaheddine Maaoui, ASBU Director General, said: The Olympic Games has always been major milestones for us, for the introduction of new platforms, technologies and services. London 2012 will be the first time our members will witness the Olympics in HD, together with comprehensive MENOS simulcast, content archiving and playout.”
MENOS multimedia network was officially launched by ASBU in January 2009. The award-winning platform supports multiple simultaneous managed exchange services for use by broadcasting organisations throughout the MENA region.
“The HD upgrades for the Olympics will benefit the ASBU MENOS users way beyond the games themselves,” added Serge Van Herck, CEO of Newtec.
“The improvements in satellite efficiency and video compression allow the ASBU and its members to benefit from higher quality HD services without any need for additional satellite bandwidth, keeping the operational costs under control.”
Many of the video and audio services have been developed to meet the exacting needs of the broadcasting industry and now will enable other great sporting events to be enjoyed in best quality throughout the region.
ASBU’s Maaoui added that the Olympics HD upgrade “is part of an on-going process of service expansion and improvement, to address the future broadcast transmission needs of our members and regional users”.
