Technology From Thomson Video Networks Powers Italy's TIMB 3D HD DTT Service

Available on DTT and digital satellite, TIMB owns Italy's third major network, serving digital terrestrial audiences nationwide with news, sports, and entertainment programming. TIMB's ambitious strategy for the channel has seen major investment in state-of-the-art infrastructure, and the recruitment of Italy's most popular anchor as news editor-in-chief in a push for growing audience share.

"For this flagship 3D service, we chose the best possible encoding solution so that our viewers would experience outstanding clarity," said Crescenzo Micheli, CTO of TIMB. "The EM3000 integrates with the rest of the Thomson equipment installed across our network to provide very efficient delivery of this exceptional image quality."

Thomson's ViBE EM3000 HD MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AVC encoder sets the standard for high-definition encoding for satellite and terrestrial broadcast, and content aggregation applications. With Thomson's advanced video compression architecture combining efficiency and advanced preprocessing, increased depth and picture clarity in HD content can be achieved at bit rates as low as 4 Mbps. TIMB's ViBE EM3000 HD installation is integrated with the NetProcessor transport stream processor and XMS Network Management System. Combined together, these components form a complete and highly efficient system, allowing broadcasters to deliver more channels within the same fixed-bandwidth satellite or terrestrial connection.

"It is always exciting to contribute to a pioneering event in broadcasting," said Eric Louvet, vice president, worldwide sales and services at Thomson Video Networks. "LA7's 3D launch is another very welcome milestone in the channel's consistent growth, and in Thomson's excellent relationship with TIMB."

TIMB

Telecom Italia Media Broadcast (TIMB) has been a major terrestrial television network operator in the Italian broadcasting scene since May 2006 when it received a broadcasting license from the public authorities. TIMB operates, manages, and develops transmission networks through which group-owned and third-party digital and analog television channels are broadcast nationwide. TIMB, which relies on state-of-the-art ICT technologies as well as top-level technical staff, opted to use digital terrestrial broadcasting technology as a mean to address the free-to-air market. The operator also chose this technology so as to offer its viewers high-quality viewing content as well as to reach high population coverage areas in Italy (94 percent).