Canal Overseas selects Wohler to handle World System Teletext

Canal
Overseas, a division of leading French broadcast group Canal+, is using the
PANORAMA dtv HDCC-200A HD/SD-SDI closed-captioning bridge to enable
efficient handling and storage of World System Teletext (WST) subtitle data
within an HD/SD playout infrastructure.

By encoding subtitles within an HD ingest workflow and subsequently decoding
those subtitles back at the time of playout, this new card supports a single
cost-effective video ingest and playout workflow regardless of the availability
of subtitles. It also adds to the bottom line by eliminating the need for
duplication of SD and HD video storage.

“The teletext data
solution provided by Wohler perfectly met our project’s functional
specifications and constraints,” said Gino Ma-Paw Youn, technical manager
at Canal Overseas. “We were searching for an innovative solution for
managing WST subtitles with HD material, and the Wohler closed-captioning
bridge helped us optimize this process within our new HD broadcast facilities.
The Wohler system is easy to implement and use, and we consider it to be the
most efficient, cost-saving solution with respect to our needs.”

Canal Overseas uses 11
HDCC-200A units to embed WST data in the HD-SDI signal (VANC) during ingest.
Six programs are simultaneously recorded from external HD feeds with SD and the
VBI-related signal, from external SD feeds upconverted during the ingest
process, or from HD tape programs with EBU subtitle files and subsequently
stored on an HD broadcast server.

On playout, Canal Overseas
uses 16 HDCC-200A bridges to extract the HD-VANC data and re-encode it as
conventional VBI teletext subtitling into a parallel SD-SDI signal
downconverted from HD. The SD-VBI subtitles are then either displayed for local
monitoring (preview channels), converted into DVB teletext subtitles on the
downconverted SD transmitted channels, or converted into DVB subtitling on
HD-transmitted channels.

This solution, installed
at Canal Overseas HD facilities outside Paris, simplifies playout of various
programs on 14 different channels transmitted by satellite to West Africa,
Polynesia, the Caribbean, Caledonia, Reunion, and Mauritius. The cost-saving
system allows Canal Overseas to store content only in HD, rather than both SD
and HD, while maintaining playout in both formats. A spare kit, including two
additional Wohler units, provides backup for the broadcaster’s subtitling
operations.

“Our HDCC-200A
product is designed to provide flexible encoding and decoding of closed-caption
data for media companies working in any broadcast standard,” said Carl J.
Dempsey, Wohler president and CEO. “The HDCC-200A is the product of
extensive work with Europa Australia’s Elio Deluca, one of the world’s
preeminent experts in the field of closed-captioning. The installation at Canal
Overseas demonstrates the efficiencies the resulting signal processing
technology can bring to European broadcasters working in both SD and HD.”

Compliant with all broadcast standards, Wohler’s
compact HDCC-200A closed-caption encoder/decoder bridge accepts HD/SD-SDI, WST,
or live data and automatically formats teletext data for insertion into the
HD-VANC space, after which it may be recorded onto storage, distributed over a
facility’s digital video network, or decoded back to WST, WSS, and GPI data
onto the SD-SDI output stream.

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