Archive notice: This article was originally published on September 23, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH (G&L) is expanding its technical infrastructure and now has state-of-the-art technology for receiving, analyzing, switching, recording, and encoding television and radio programs.
The systems integrator is responding to the growing demand for powerful headend technology. “The increasing demands placed on the quality of television and radio signals, as well as on the availability of services, require an infrastructure that meets the latest standards,” explains Alexander Leschinsky, Managing Director of Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH.
At its two Cologne locations, G&L has expanded the complete signal path for 64 television and 128 radio programs. Ten redundant satellite dishes from Kathrein, each equipped with four LNBs, are used for reception. The satellite signals are fed into a redundant Hiltron HMS-16-32 L-band matrix. From there, they are routed to more than 30 redundant Tandberg TT1222 and TT1260 receivers.
The television signals are passed via SDI to a redundant Network Electronics VD6464S router. A 19-inch server programmed by G&L analyzes the VPS signal and switches automatically between live programming and commercial breaks. The system also evaluates the WSS signal and switches between 4:3 and 16:9 formats. Osprey 700HD cards are used for recording.
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The radio signals are transferred from the redundant Tandberg receivers as MPEG2 transport streams to a Network Electronics ASI router. This enables reception of the 40 ARD radio programs. Decoding is handled by db Broadcast decoders installed in a redundant Vistek frame. A Network Electronics AD128128M router distributes the audio signals.
Encoding is performed on redundant HP ProLiant DL380 G5 servers. The internet connection is also redundant. All systems can be controlled through a web interface or via a web service based on XML-RPC. Remote control is available via SNMP. Nagios is used to monitor the complete infrastructure. Depending on the service-level agreement, G&L can guarantee availability of up to 100 percent.
The resulting streams are distributed through Akamai, Limelight Networks, and Octoshape.
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