Sky Italia chooses T-VIPS IP Video Transport Solutions for Next Generation IP Contribution Network

The T-VIPS Video Gateway suite is a flexible and cost-effective portfolio of products designed for real-time contribution and distribution of broadcast-quality video. The project has been deliveredby T-VIPS valued business partner, CVE. The T-VIPS solutions are now integrated with the network, which will go live in the first half of 2011. This deployment, which connects Milan and Rome, is the first phase of a Sky Italia project to move to an advanced future-proofed all-IP video contribution network.

This phase of the project provides video transport, with fully redundant network routing, between studios and additional points of presence in Milan and Rome. The contribution network has been designed for maximum flexibility and supports MPEG-2/4, uncompressed SDI and JPEG2000 compression. An important feature of the TVG425 MPEG Transport Streamis that it has in-built input switching, which provides Sky Italia with automated redundancy for ASI and IP Transport Streams,removing the requirement to deploy separate dedicated switching equipment to achieve full network redundancy. The TVG450 enables Sky Italia to deploy JPEG2000 compression for the real-time contribution and distribution of broadcast quality video over IP networks and supports lossless and visually lossless compression, reducing bandwidth requirement without affecting videoquality.

“The T-VIPS Video Gateway solutions enable us to transport video over IP without any discernible loss of quality in the final consumer service,” says Massimo Bertolotti Head of Platform Engineering and Innovation, Sky Italia. “We chose the T-VIPS solution because in our tests the equipment demonstrated very high quality combined with robustness and stability, plus as the pioneer of JPEG2000 in broadcast, T-VIPS has an unrivalled track record in IP transport.”

“Demanding projects like the Sky Italia next generation contribution network are really exciting to work on because the customer has invested in new technologies for a critical application and they expect those solutions to work for many years to come. When you win one of these projects it demonstrates that you have backed the right technologies in your product roadmap, implemented well and provided the right functionality for the future,” says Johnny Dolvik, CEO, T-VIPS. “I’m therefore delighted to be part of the Sky Italia next generation contribution network and look forward to our solutions playing a part in delivering pay-tv in Italy well into the future.”