PSSI Global Service Provides Satellite Transmission, Digital Encoding for Political Conventions
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PSSI Global Services is providing its satellite transmission and digital encoding services for the July 2016 political conventions for both the Republican and Democratic parties. The Republican National Convention took place at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Democratic National Convention will take place at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
For the Republican convention, PSSI provided services for three clients. For the most complex requirement, WETA, PSSI provided frame accurate, multi-channel encoding on both its flyaway satellite and fiber circuits allowing the convention coverage to be produced and switched remotely from the WETA Washington, DC facility. PSSI built an ad hoc system at the WETA facilities that received and decoded the multiplex while also sending three return paths of audio, video, and communication via satellite and fiber back to the crew in Cleveland. This is the same technology PSSI has successfully deployed for its clients for their “At Home” style productions. The systems will support up to 10 hours of transmission time each day.
PSSI also serviced GOP-TV at Quicken Loans Arena with a 2.4m flyaway uplink system for rapid worldwide deployment of gavel-to-gavel coverage. Both flyaway systems were deployed on the rooftop of the arena. The systems are certified for operations on all Domsat, Intelsat, Eutelsat, Defense Services Communications Systems (DSCS), and other international satellites. GOP-TV also supplemented its coverage with inserts from PSSI uplink trucks in various locations around the U.S.
Finally, PSSI provided a Ku-Band truck for Eurovision’s coverage of the final day of the convention.
For next week’s Democratic convention, in addition to the same services for WETA studios, a second PSSI KU-band truck will be deployed for transmitting two separate paths of audio and video via satellite from the Wells Fargo Center. Path one will offer gavel-to-gavel live coverage of the political convention. Path two will be centered on interviews and content that will complement convention coverage. Both feeds will be distributed as a webcast.
“That’s a unique aspect to what we’re doing for these conventions,” says Matt Scalici, general manager of PSSI. “While we’re still providing traditional broadcast services, we’re offering specific internet users live coverage of the Democratic convention as well. Overall, PSSI is offering unprecedented multi-camera feeds. There is an extraordinary amount of engineering design and support that goes into seamlessly transmitting these two very demanding and historical events.”
