Alabama Public Television Solves Its HD Bandwidth Problem With Telairity BE8100 H.264/AVC Encoder

Alabama Public Television Solves Its HD Bandwidth Problem With Telairity BE8100 H.264/AVC Encoder

City-to-city HD transmission solved without requiring a network replacement

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Imagine trying to relocate a three-story house from one city to another - and the only available path to move it leads through a single-lane tunnel with a low ceiling. It is not unlike the dilemma faced by Alabama Public Television (APT) when it needed to transmit high-definition programming from its production headquarters in Montgomery to its control center in Birmingham which then distributes programming throughout the state. The problem? An existing "pipeline" between the cities built for standard definition transmission that was wholly inadequate for HDTV signal bandwidth.

That's where Telairity's BE-8100 H.264/AVC high-definition encoder came in: a solution that enabled the public television network to solve its HD problem with a single cost-effective system, and without the far more expensive solution of replacing its connecting network.

APT operates a network of nine TV stations scattered throughout the state. Its production studio, located at WAIQ-TV in Montgomery, produces programs including "Capital Journal," "Alabama Stories," and "Face To Face." A Network Operations Center (NOC), which distributes programming via satellite to its stations around the state, is located at WBIQ-TV in Birmingham. The link between these two sites (either satellite or terrestrial microwave) is limited to a maximum bandwidth of six megabits per second (Mbps).

The network was adequate when programs were available only in standard definition, but when APT changed over to HDTV program production, involving four to six times more data than SDTV programs, the transmission problem was suddenly acute. A new compression scheme was needed, but which one?

"Obviously standard MPEG-2 compression wasn't the answer," said Windell Wood, APT director of engineering. "That typically requires upwards of 15 Mbps for quality HD transmissions. So we started investigating more advanced forms of compression, in particular, H.264/AVC (MPEG-4) technology. Most of the systems we looked at in this area, however, had their own problems. Some were simply too expensive for us to consider, and the affordable solutions didn't do a very good job when we turned the bit rate down below 8 Mbps.

"Then we found Telairity, which was a new entrant in the H.264/AVC compression market in 2007 when we were doing our evaluation. Not only was their encoder affordable, it did a beautiful job of compression at our target bit rate of 6 Mbps."

Asked if he had any second thoughts about doing business with a start-up rather than one of the more established encoder companies, Wood replied, "Not in the least. Not only has the Telairity BE8100 met all our expectations for video quality and reliability, but the support from Telairity has been excellent. Their response time in answering technical questions is second to none. We are very pleased both with the encoder and in our decision to do business with Telairity. We would recommend Telairity encoders to anyone."

Added Howard Sachs, Telairity CEO, "Alabama Public Television became one of our first customers after we introduced our HD encoder line in 2007. Not only are we pleased that they selected us as their vendor, but we're delighted that their experience following the sale has continued to be positive. Our goal is to combine technical excellence--provided by our own in-house hardware and software engineering teams, located at our USA-based Silicon Valley development facility--with new standards for product reliability and usability, and backed by the best prices and the best service available from anyone. Frankly, we believe the question isn't 'Why buy from Telairity?' but rather 'Why would you want to buy an H.264/AVC encoder from anyone else?'"

About Alabama Public Television

Alabama Public Television (APT) operates nine stations providing complete geographical coverage for the state of Alabama. In addition to broadcasting popular national PBS shows in HD, like Masterpiece, APT also originates HD programs at its studio in Montgomery. In addition to producing news and public affairs programs, APT broadcasts content produced by the state's universities for online education and course credit. APT is licensed by the Alabama Educational Television Commission, created by the state legislature in 1953. In 1955, Alabama became the first state in the nation to create an educational television network, serving as the model for the 25 states that have since started public television networks.

About Telairity

Telairity is a supplier of innovative real-time H.264/AVC (MPEG-4) video compression solutions for broadcasting, backhaul, IPTV, and related markets. The company's unique video processing technology, based on the Telairity T1P2000 multi-core video processor and associated direct-execution AVClairity video compression software, delivers the industry's lowest latency and best price/performance for real-time H.264 video encoders today, with unique features like "instant" on. The company was founded in 2001 and is based in Santa Clara, Calif. Further information is available at www.telairity.com.

Telairity and AVClairity are trademarks of Telairity, Inc. All other trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners.

Source: Telairity, Inc.

CONTACT: Skip Ferderber of Skip Ferderber & Associates, +1-425-315-1724,
skip.ferderber@skipf1.com for Telairity, Inc.; or Harlan McGhan of Telairity,
Inc., +1-408-764-0270, ext. 518, harlan@telairity.com

Web Site: http://www.telairity.com/

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