MUMBAI: Hindi news channel Live India has announced a partnership with Harmonic for an end-to-end contribution solution to improve video quality and optimise connectivity between the organisation’s regional news bureaus and main headquarters in Noida.
Harmonic’s Ellipse 3100 contribution encoders and ProView 7100 integrated receiver-decoders (IRDs) provide Live India with a high-density, scalable and bandwidth-efficient solution for fixed contribution applications, enabling the broadcaster to cost-effectively expand from two to five streaming news channels.
By more than doubling its channel lineup, Live India can now ensure that viewers across India are able to stay abreast of important breaking news and live events. The broadcaster chose Harmonic’s contribution solutions based on superior performance and support for a wide range of broadcast standards and formats, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVB-S2, SD, HD, and MP4, that allow for increased flexibility, bandwidth savings and exceptional video quality. As Live India adds more channels in the future, Harmonic’s solutions will provide the broadcaster with easy scalability at an affordable price point.
“Over the years, Harmonic has gained a reputation around the world as a leading provider of contribution solutions based on the flexibility, scalability, and amazing video quality we bring to live news and sports applications,” said Harmonic Asia Pacific sales vice president Andrew Thornton. “Working with Live India on this project, we’re able to demonstrate to broadcasters everywhere how simple and affordable it is to expand your service offering using an end-to-end contribution solution from Harmonic.”
Harmonic’s Ellipse 3100 encoder features simultaneous IP and DVB-ASI outputs, making it the ideal solution for Live India’s fixed contribution needs. The versatile encoder supports all SD and HD MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC codecs at 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and 8 or 10 bits, guaranteeing pristine video quality. Live India is currently using the encoder for SD 4:2:2 with plans to migrate to HD 4:2:2 in the future. Fully firmware upgradeable, the Ellipse encoders provide Live India with a smooth and cost-effective migration path. The low-latency encoders help eliminate awkward pauses during handoffs between Live India’s field and studio talent for a seamless broadcast.
Live India is using the Ellipse encoders in combination with Harmonic’s ProView 7100 IRDs. The solution lowers the broadcaster’s capital and operational expenses. Harmonic’s ProView 7100 IRDs provide Live India with a 1RU, scalable, multiformat IRD, transcoder, and MPEG stream processor designed to increase workflow efficiencies and video quality for contribution applications. After Live India compresses live content using the Ellipse encoders, Harmonic’s ProView 7100 IRDs decompress the content at the same sampling and bitrate, resulting in nearly lossless video quality.
Currently, the network operates Live India and Mi Marathi which lately converted itself from being just an entertainment channel to include news and current affairs as well.
