Today, «1+1 media» launched its own ground-based satellite transmitting station Uplink. The station will allow the group to independently broadcast a signal to the SES Astra 4a satellite for its TV channels, as well as act as a communication transmission provider for clients from the external market. The teleport is located in the main office building of «1+1 media», according to the company's press release.
The preparation and implementation of the project to create the transmitting station «1+1 media» took more than a year. The design and installation of the facility were carried out by specialists from Ukrainian design, construction and integration companies with the participation and under the guidance of specialists from «1+1 media». The basis of the complex is the equipment of four world companies - industry leaders: Ericsson, СPI, SatCom Technologies, SatService.
Uplink is a high-tech broadcasting platform with a service life of more than 10 years and a fully automated work system. The station is managed by two NMS (Network Management System) systems - n-Compass (Ericsson) and Sat NMS (SatService). For the first time in Ukraine, 3.8 m offset transmitting satellite antennas from Geneal Dynamics SatCom Technologies have been installed, the technical characteristics of which allowed them to pass tests for compliance with the requirements of the international operator SES Astra and obtain a certificate. The antenna teleport is adapted to work in snowy winters and other bad weather: the antennas and their foundations are equipped with an effective anti-icing system, which is necessary in our conditions. The station was designed on the principle of excluding single points of failure, all critical equipment has 100% redundancy and supports modern MPEG2/4, HD/SD, DVBS/S2 standards. It is worth noting that the efficient compression equipment from Ericsson allows working at the lowest possible digital stream speeds while maintaining a high level of signal quality. If necessary, individual services can be encoded by the Verimatrix cardless conditional access system, which is also part of the station.
Uplink is located at the company's television center in the group's central office, where equipment for compression systems, signal formation, management and a 24/7 station monitoring service are also located.
“I am glad that the «1+1 media» group has the opportunity to use its own teleport to independently broadcast its channels to the satellite. The development of the company suggests that with such a number of channels and the power of the technological base, this is simply a necessity. In the future, in addition to the economic effect, this will allow the group to quickly manage both the quality of signal distribution and be ready for any changes in the distribution format (encoding, HD, DVB-S2),” comments Philip Petrenko, technical director of «1+1 media».
According to the company's estimates, the investments made in the implementation of the project will pay off in the first two years of operation.
“Some time ago, we set ourselves the goal of bringing all the channels of «1+1 media» together on one satellite. Today, we have managed to realize this task and launch our own modern uplink station. Its work will improve the reliability, as well as the quality of the signal of the group's channels and partners. Recently, we switched the broadcasting of channels to the 16x9 format, and the next step is to create HD versions of the channels,” notes Yaroslav Pakholchuk, executive director of «1+1 media».