Tandberg to provide Macedonia headend

Further details have emerged of the technical platform behind the new On.Net DTT platform in Macedonia.

The Telekom Slovenije platform is to use an MPEG-4 AVC headend solution provided by Tandberg Television. The 60-channel offering will take advantage of Tandberg’s compression techniques to deliver both standard and high definition channels on the platform.

“Our headend solution is specifically optimised for DVB-T/T2 with dense multiplexing and SFN MIP insertion as well as distributed compression and multiplexing, explained Tandberg’s Simon Frost. “Our Reflex statistical multiplexing technology means On.net can encode channels in one location and multiplex them into the final groups for transmission in another. It is very efficient.”

Predrag Cemerikic, CEO at On.net, said he anticipated the platform would meet with the same success as has been the case in other European platforms. “We selected Tandberg Television as our project partner because of its vast experience helping network operators introduce DVB-T services. The company’s MPEG-4 AVC video encoders provide excellent picture quality at low bitrates, enabling us to fit as many channels as possible into the terrestrial spectrum that is available, and keeping our transmission costs to a minimum.”

On Wednesday Viaccess announced it would be supplying conditional access to the platform. The France Telecom company’s statement counted 50 TV channels.