Comux selects Ericsson for local TV delivery
September 5, 2013
Comux UK, the community-owned business selected by Ofcom to build, operate and manage the national infrastructure to support local TV, has selected Ericsson to enable it to efficiently package the content delivered from the 19 local TV areas – Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Sheffield and Southampton.
Crucial to the selection is the architecture of the Ericsson multi-platform head-end system, a key component in enabling the 19 local TV licensees to quickly deliver new services and channels to UK viewers and providing Comux with the scalability and flexibility required to grow their infrastructure in the future. Core to the solution is the Ericsson AVP 4000 compression platform, powered by the company’s first-ever video processing chip. The dedicated software programmable engine guarantees that Comux can benefit from further video quality improvement in MPEG-2 in the future as well as the ability to upgrade to other resolutions and formats.
Ed Hall, Chief Executive, Comux, said: “The selection of technology partners such as Ericsson is a critical part of the infrastructure we are putting in place to support the launch of 19 local TV stations across the UK. After a thorough evaluation of a number of compression platforms, carried out jointly with our systems integrator Techex, the Ericsson AVP 4000 solution delivered the performance and support package that best meets our needs. The implementation of the Ericsson AVP 4000 solution ensures that we can continue to be innovative, flexible and responsive to the needs of the local TV licence holders as the service develops and expands.”
“The launch of local TV in the UK is an exciting, ambitious project, and we are delighted that our partnership with Comux is helping to create the biggest addition to the UK’s TV infrastructure since the transition to digital TV,” said Giles Wilson, Head of TV Compression Business, Ericsson. “The high performance of our latest video processing platform will mean that this new terrestrial network will benefit from the industry’s leading bandwidth management and enable Comux to meet consumer desire for high quality, regional content.”