Smart technology for TopTV
ODM launched its subscription channel with three transponders on the Astra 4 satellite positioned at 5º east, providing excellent illumination over Southern Africa. “We started from scratch in November last year and were able to launch a satellite TV service on 1 May 2010, with 52 channels in less than six months,” Frans Lindeque, ODM’s chief technical officer told EngineerIT. “We benefitted from major new technology developments. Shopping around for equipment and best-of-breed contractors and equipment, I often felt like a little boy let loose in a hi-tech toyshop!”
Over the past few years compression techniques have developed to enable the delivery of high quality pictures and superior fidelity sound. ODM has opted for MPEG-4 DVB S2 which allows more channels to be packed on a transponder, yet with enhanced performance over the older MPEG-2 standard.
ODM is making use of the Seacom cable through Globecast to feed signals to the Astra Platform Services’ ground stations in Germany; and has also secured bandwidth from Telkom on SAT3 as back-up. Using optic fibre on the feed leg has reduced the possibility of rainfade, a possibility that increases with every additional satellite hob.
“We aggregate the SABC, ETV, our own gospel channel and a few other channels here at our facility in Woodmead, and via the service from Globecast, feed the signals to Germany.”
Another interesting aspect of ODM’s network is the use of different frequency bands. In Europe all available spectrum in the Ku band for uplinking to the satellite was already used by other operators, leaving Ses Astra no choice than to opt for the Ka band. Some critics were sceptical about using Ka band as it increases the chance of rain fade. SES Astra proved them wrong. The company however put additional measures in place to ensure that interference-free signals would be received by the satellite by constructing two upload centres in Germany one in Munich and one in Nuremberg, some 160 km apart. There is full redundancy between the two and advanced weather pattern predictions will dictate the primary uplink. The download from the satellite is on Ku band.
“At the subscribers’ premises we recommend the use of a 80 cm dish but tests have shown that persons with a standard 60 cm dish can swing the dish towards our satellite and achieve good results. We have also engaged a number of independent installers and have provided them with extensive training to ensure the correct installation and pointing of the dish.
“In selecting a decoder we have opted for one that offers both an radio frequency (RF) and a video output to accommodate older TV sets that can only receive RF signals. The screen format accommodates both standard 4 x 3 ratio and the 16 x 9 ratio used for flat screen LCD, plasma and led TV sets.”
State-of-the-art equipment is not limited to the fibre and transmission equipment but also to the IT facilities. The latest APC cabinets are used to house the equipment with cold aisle and hot aisle facilities to maximise the cooling aspect with the lowest possible energy consumption. All the systems are supplied from UPS equipment while the entire operation is backed up by a 600 kVA generator.
While picture quality is excellent, ODM is looking at introducing high definition and PVR facilities in the next twelve months. Currently a fully-fledged channel monitoring system is being installed to replace the temporary facility that was installed to get on-air monitoring going.
From a customer service point of view, a state-of-the-art contact centre has been set up, but like with all customer contact centres, how much capacity does one plan for? “When we launched on 1 May, 50 000 decoders were sold, far exceeding our wildest expectation. Yes, the call centre took extreme strain, with our overflow system recording large volumes of messages, but from a technology point of view it held its own,” said Lindeque.
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