Satellite Television & Radio Australia places Appear’s high-density XC platform at the centre of its re-broadcasting workflow to rural areas, handling compression, stream processing and de-scrambling.
The Australian government's Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service is a direct-to-home digital satellite television service that supports comprehensive coverage across Australia. This service is particularly beneficial for the country’s rural viewers who are unable to receive digital signals from terrestrial transmitters in their area due to interference or inadequate equipment.
VAST makes a reliable free-to-air satellite television option available that includes the full range of digital channels. It includes programming from major networks such as the ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9 and Channel 10, along with time-shifted versions where applicable.
Satellite Television & Radio Australia (STRA) works across Australia with regional councils to design DTV re-transmission sites capable of delivering terrestrial broadcasting to their communities by taking advantage of VAST’s distribution to access the required services. Recently, STRA was hired to enhance and upgrade the re-broadcasting capabilities of various councils across Western Australia to ensure viewers receive the networks’ programming.
Re-Broadcasting for VAST Services
Because STRA had a range of requirements for this project, their team worked with Magna Systems and Engineering to source the appropriate equipment. A large part of the job involved replacing ageing equipment and managing the transition to HD broadcasting for several channels. They would need the option to receive multiple satellite feeds and, for decryption of all services, a common interface (CI) to establish a connection between the viewer’s TV or set-top box and the conditional access module (CAM) that decrypts the TV signal.
For specific regional council locations, full data packet identifier (PID) remapping functionality was required to rebuild the correct PSI/SI (Program Service Information) table information at the receiver end. Through this functionality, the receiver can be automatically configured to demultiplex and decode separate program streams in a multiplexed stream. STRA also needed to be able to rebuild the Electronic Program Guides.
To meet all of these these requirements for the VAST service across seven sites in Western Australia, with a minimum of four ASI outputs for transport stream delivery to their downstream DVB-T modulator, STRA purchased the Appear XC5100 platform from Magna.
Magna’s Business Development Manager Adrian French said, “The XC Platform, Appear’s modular head-end for IPTV and broadcast distribution, handles compression, stream processing and de-scrambling, built into a high-density chassis. It supports distribution across cable, satellite and terrestrial networks.
“Its low footprint, reliability and flexibility means it is especially well suited for the regional councils in this project. Equipped to turn around VAST’s satellite feeds, it presents DVB-T-ready transport streams for modulation and transmission downstream.”
High-Density, Flexible Headend
In line with STRA’s work to maintain Australia-wide terrestrial broadcast delivery, the Appear system now enables rural communities to receive the same news, sports and entertainment content as the wider population, free of charge.
STRA’s MD Glenn Welsh commented, “In some cases, our team is simply replacing older equipment, while in others, green field installations are necessary. For a greenfield site, we are the primary integrator responsible for the design and installation of the antenna, satellite dish, modulator and other infrastructure elements. We can place the Appear equipment at the centre of the workflow, as it manipulates the source content and generates the required output for re-transmission, depending on the location.”
Adrian French noted that the density of the XC Platform was a key factor. “Other systems use multiple boxes, but the Appear system‘s 1RU dual PSU chassis contains all I/O and processing requirements. The robustness of the platform is also a definite advantage, given the remote locations we have had to adapt to.” www.magnasys.tv
