Extreme Broadcasting
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Explorer® 700 ExtreME broaDCasting “EXPLORER 700 is the perfect tool as it is built to withstand almost any environment.” When Italian news station SKY TG24 was looking The choice for journalists and film crews for technology for broadcasting in extreme “BGAN has opened up many new areas of communication and situations, the combination of EXPLORER 700 and perhaps one of the most important of these is within the media,” Inmarsat BGAN was the obvious choice. explains Mr. Marco Imperatori, Land Mobile Applications Manager, Telemar. “Although reports from far flung places and extreme envi- SKY TG24, headquartered in Rome, is one of Italy’s premier news ronments were available before the advent of BGAN, only now are channels. In order to keep the impressive viewing figures and we starting to see high quality, clear footage that can be delivered expand the audience, SKY TG24 is dedicated to reporting the either live or via FTP to the station, for a quick turnaround to broad- breaking news at home in Italy and from all over the world, no matter cast. EXPLORER 700 is the perfect tool to enable this as it is built to how extreme the environment is in which the story is unfolding. withstand almost any environment, whilst being lightweight, easy to use and reliable at the same time. These attributes not only make it “We were looking for a technology that would enable us to broadcast the choice for journalists and film crews but also for producers and live in extreme situations,” says Mr. Flavio Maspes, Foreign desk directors who demand the footage as soon as it is taken.” Supervisor, SKY TG24. “So, we did some testing with a computer, connected to a Thrane & Thrane EXPLORER 700. ” A truly mobile package Equipped with just a DV camera, a laptop and EXPLORER 700, The initial testing was done with the help of Telemar, a Thrane & SKY TG24’s correspondent in Lebanon was on-hand to film at the UN Thrane partner in Italy. Telemar has a wide-ranging experience with peacekeeping force’s base when France was handing over command BGAN and EXPLORER terminals with many diverse customers such to Italy. A truly mobile package as the encoding of the streaming as Everest-K2-CNR, an organization that uses EXPLORER for weather sequence takes place on the laptop, which is placed between the tracking on Mount Everest. camera and the EXPLORER. “We broadcast the whole ceremony live thanks to the streaming function at 256 kbps of the EXPLORER 700,” says Flavio Maspes. Explorer ® 700 Lightweight and flexible EXPLORER 700 fully integrated The next use of SKY TG24’s new mobile system was in a somewhat SKY TG24 now has the EXPLORER 700 fully integrated into its out- more extreme environment explains Flavio: side broadcast team and the system has helped transmit a wealth of interesting and exciting news to the station’s growing audience. “A few weeks after the Lebanon story, another tricky situation came up. The Stromboli volcano was threatening to erupt. It was “We transmitted statements of the former Italian Defense Minister, clearly impossible to use a traditional satellite truck so we took the Arturo Parisi, live from Afghanistan and we covered live the pro- EXPLORER and left for the scene. Once on the spot, we realized just tests of Tibetan monks in exile in Dharamsala at the foot of mount how lightweight and flexible the solution is so we weren’t satisfied Himalaya. Recently, we were in Georgia to report daily on the with just broadcasting from the harbor. Instead, we had our corre- Caucasus war with live transmissions from Gori, the Georgian town spondent reporting live directly from the hillside where the lava that was occupied by Russian tanks,” concludes Flavio. and the burning stones could be seen falling and cooling down in the Mediterranean water.” As with the majority of news channels, technology is a critical factor in success or failure. To this end, SKY TG24 is dedicated to use the latest and most suitable technology available. “Beside the live streaming, we also use the file transfer protocol to send compressed edited video packages over to our newsroom,” comments Flavio. “We had our correspondent reporting live directly from the hillside where the lava and the burning stones could be seen falling and The EXPLORER gets around cooling down in the Mediterranean water.” Just as the name suggests, EXPLORER certainly gets around. Its small size and low weight mean that, in combination with a camera, laptop and any encoding/decoding software, it becomes part of the perfect mobile package. Because of its mobility and reliability, media profes- sionals like those at SKY TG24 can trust BGAN and EXPLORER to deliver the footage no matter how extreme the environment is that they are reporting from. “We were looking for a technology that would enable us to broadcast live in extreme situations.” Learn more about EXPLORER on www.thrane.com/explorer -A00 07.09 Brandhouse -A00 07.09 Thrane & Thrane A/S · [email protected] · www.thrane.com 71-129813.