New York State’s PBS Stations Pick Thomson’s ViBE and XMS MPEG over IP Contribution Solution

New York
State’s PBS-member stations, through the use of a combination of CPB and state
funding, have purchased Thomson’s ViBE and XMS eXtensible Management System
MPEG-2 over IP technology for their network interconnection solution.

“Thomson
was one of many that responded to our RFP, but they had what we considered the
most complete and best solution for our stations”, said John Duffy, Vice
President-Technology and Operations for WCNY in

Syracuse,
NY.
“After a thorough investigation of proposal responses by our group and visits
to the final vendors, the ViBE and XMS system was what we had asked for — a
simple and reliable way to share MPEG content over IP networks without complex
scheduling.”

The system
will be used to send real time audio/video programming between each independent

New York
State PBS-member stations. For

New York
State residents the MPEG-2 interconnect
solution means a new way for PBS-member stations to share educational programs
between cities and rural areas, further supporting the mission of public
television.

The New
York State PBS-member stations included in this project are: WCNY-TV
(Syracuse), WNED-TV (Buffalo), WPBS-TV (Watertown), WXXI-TV (Rochester),
WMHT-TV (Troy), WCFE-TV (Plattsburgh), WSKG-TV (Vestal), WLIW-TV (Plainview),
and WNET-TV (New York City).

By using
Thomson’s Forward Error Correction (FEC) and IP address management,

New York
State’s PBS-member stations are assured
of an interconnection system that delivers maximum quality of service while
being easy to manage.

“As a
world leader in contribution networks, our VIBE and XMS product lines deliver
both quality and cost efficiency,” said Patrick Montliaud, Senior Vice
President of Thomson’s Integration and Networking Solutions business unit. “For
broadcasters, MPEG over IP networks are a cost effective solution over
expensive satellite networks. We are pleased to have been selected to support

New York
State’s PBS-member stations with their
new interconnection system.

About the
Products

With more
than 8,000 units sold from mid-2003, the Thomson VIBE line is the most
efficient and compact digital content delivery platform available, combining
encoding, decoding, MPEG processing, multiplexing, and network adaptation
functions in a modular chassis. Available in 1 RU and 5 RU versions, it
features best-in-class MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression as well as solutions
for transport over IP/MPLS, ATM, PDH, or SONET/SDH backbones.

The XMS
eXtensible Management System controls and monitors all Thomson compression,
MPEG processing, and transmission products, and an increasing number of
third-party products, in order to provide comprehensive solutions. It is well
adapted to manage super head-end facilities as well as small digital TV
systems, whether the systems are “traditional wired ASI” or
“full IP” based, and it also manages contribution application. XMS
client/server software offers a suite of applications and graphical user
interfaces for provisioning, controlling, operating redundancy, and monitoring
not only equipment, but also bitrates, MPEG services, and telecom
transmissions.