TANDBERG Television's HD and SD MPEG-2 encoders have been chosen by Journal Broadcast Group for an over-the-air ATSC broadcasting solution. The system has been sold by systems integrator Heartland Video Systems, Inc., a long standing TANDBERG Television business partner. TANDBERG Television’s MPEG-2 encoding systems offer ATSC broadcasters newly expanded solutions for the digital transition, including AFD signaling capabilities for downstream analog conversion. The first of Journal Broadcast Group's stations to use the encoders has selected a multi-pass statistical multiplexing solution, which increases the bandwidth efficiency when simultaneously broadcasting multiple streams of HD and SD.

KTNV in Las Vegas is the first of Journal's stations to install the TANDBERG multi-pass statistical multiplex system. The station will broadcast one HD and two SD channels in MPEG-2. Compared to a standard statistical multiplex system, TANDBERG Television's multi-pass system frees as much as 10% of the 19.39 megabytes per second of ATSC allocated bandwidth for other uses. These uses could include higher bit rates on each channel for improved video quality, or could provide bandwidth for additional services. During NAB, for example, KTNV will be providing part of their bandwidth for a mobile ATSC demonstration conducted at the show.

TANDBERG Television and Heartland Video Systems have worked together in the ATSC market since 1998 and have worked on solutions for Journal Broadcast Group since 2001 when Heartland Video Systems installed TANDBERG Television HD encoders in Journal stations WSYM-TV, KMIR-TV and KTNV-TV.

TANDBERG Television to Demonstrate Products That Ease the Digital Transition at NAB

TANDBERG Television will demonstrate the newest features of its encoders, multiplexers and new professional receivers at NAB in its booth #SU4210. New features include support of SMPTE 2016-1-2007, "Format for Active Format Description and Bar Data", for the E5700 series encoders and PSIP carouselling for the MX5620 multiplexer. Additionally, NAB marks the launch of the RX8320 ATSC Broadcast Receiver, designed specifically to ease the digital transition for broadcasters and service providers alike.

Using the new Active Format Description feature of the E5700 series encoders, broadcasters can transmit the AFD signal with the high definition picture to signal downstream devices what to do when they convert an HD digital picture into an analog picture. It can signal that the video has been created in a manner that protects the 4x3 center of the picture (thereby requesting the downstream device to do a 4x3 center cut during downconversion) or it can signal that the 16x9 aspect ratio should be maintained and that the downconverted picture should be letterboxed instead.

Being able to deliver the AFD signal to downstream receivers capable of reading it and acting accordingly (such as the newly introduced RX8320 ATSC Broadcast Receiver from TANDBERG Television) is of paramount importance to broadcasters wanting to maintain control of the look and feel of their signal to viewers after the digital transition.

The PSIP carouselling feature provides a backup system for broadcasters; if the external PSIP generator fails, the mux will continue to spool (carousel) and send PSIP information to maintain a compliant ATSC signal until the PSIP generator has been restored. This is particularly critical to broadcasters, who must maintain compliance with the PSIP data for downstream receive devices to function properly.