You are hereHome / Newsletter / Newsletter October 2011

Newsletter October 2011

Oct 01, 2011

Newswave

October 3, 2011

1 Special Guest - 2 Inside the screen - 3 More than a product - 4 Show-Time - 5 Contact us

Special Guest - Interview with

Phil Titus

Director of Broadcasting Engineering for KUED

Hello Phil,

Since 1997 you have been Director of Broadcasting Engineering for KUED. Would you tell us what means to you to work for KUED and what you enjoy the most in your daily activities?

I have actually been working with Public Television stations for over 30 years now. Joining KUED and being a part of the PBS Family has been a dream come true. I have been privileged to be a part of the most exciting thing to happen to television, the transition to digital television. Aside from the rare chance I have to “get my hands dirty”, I enjoy talking with our viewers. They call, mostly frustrated with their new technology, and I get the chance to talk with them and help them work to solve whatever problem they have. Most of the time we get it right and the viewer gets a chance to help “fix” the problem himself.

On KUED's website your bio says that the most exciting thing you deal with at the station are the challenges of digital TV. What are in your opinion these challenges?

The challenges of digital television have been in changing old thinking processes from an established profession and adapting those new processes into a new and always changing technology. I think we have been successful in changing the old thought processes, but now the challenge is to keep up with the fast pace of technology. Constant education is the rule now. Technology that used to last 30 years, now changes completely every 5 years.

How do you see the future of Broadcasting Over-the-air in these hot days between FCC and National Broadband Plan?

The future of broadcasting is still bright! PBS remains #1 in the Public Trust. Radio and Television broadcasting still remain the most efficient use of data bandwidth. The use and diversity of the new Digital Television format is in its infancy with most of its potential yet untapped. I have been working for over 30 years in non–profit PBS stations with dedicated employees devoted to the education and enlightenment of the public. It breaks my heart to see the promise of big money influences the decisions of lawmakers who we trust with the future of our children. Time after time, broadcasting has proven to be a more reliable, more efficient method of getting information to the public. Recent natural disasters on the east coast have shown, without a doubt, that the only technology left standing was broadcasting.

Inside the Screen - Interview with Domenico Vitrano

Operations and Project Management Executive For Screen Service Broadcasting Technologies

Ciao Domenico,

As Operations and Project Management Executive For Screen Service Broadcasting Technologies one of your major tasks is the expansionist policy. How Screen Service is planning to expand its brand?  

Well, during the last two years we have seen an incremental transformation of Screen Service from a pure manufacturer into an end to end solutions provider. Starting with the provisioning of professional services through the acquisition of the RRD team and continuing with the Network Operator initiative through its subsidiary Tivuitalia, Screen Service faces the same challenges of its customers every day. This is an additional reason why Screen Service customers get the best services and products available from the SSBT ecosystem. The feedbacks we get from them help us prioritize new products development and launch. There is a lot of work underground, which goes from encoders to baseband processors, integrated receivers and decoders, signal analyzers and the next major exhibitions will show many of them. But our offering, as said, does not only include hardware: we are expanding our portfolio with broadcast network planning services and monitoring solutions..

Screen Service is very active on the international Market. What are you doing in order to reach international countries?  

We have been implementing all the available broadcast standards for years in order to allow every world region to benefit from our technology. Operating at worldwide level requires severe global operations procedures together with local support in order to be always ready to serve our customers, both from a sales point of view or a technical emergency one. We are working hard at the headquarter level to enhance our key performance indicators in business operations and keep up with our commitments to deliver the best "customer-tailored" products in the market. We are also opening new offices worldwide in order to have tighter local contact especially in those different time zones of the global market that Screen Service is trying to reach.  

From your R&D coordinator point of view, what do you see in the future of Screen Service Broadcasting Technologies?  

Many companies in our market are facing the current economic scenario and are under pressure given their fundamentals to be kept in front of the market. This is affecting their R&D resources which are seen as a mid-term revenue generator in favor of short-term actions like cost reduction or portfolio re-structuring. Screen Service is keeping up with its innovative vision maintaining full throttle on its R&D department that, moreover, has recently moved to a new, modern and team oriented place. Our new Demo Areas have already welcomed several of our customers eager to have a preview of their upcoming products and solutions such as our GPS-Free technology which can guarantee SFN timings propagation without the need of the GPS system. Many other solutions are under development in our R&D department, some of them are necessarily market-driven projects but most of all are products specifically made for customers who find in our team the necessary skills and holistic approach to convert their problems into solutions. It is not easy to say which specific technology will prevail or which one will be implemented first, what is sure is that our team will always be ready to follow our customers’ needs.

More than a Pruduct -The ARK-6

Regenerative Transmitter

www.screenservice.net

The New SDT ARK-6 Series is the result of years of research and represents the state of the art of the worldwide transmitter technology.

We call it UNIVERSAL DRIVER because of its incredible capability to be all configurations within one hardware.

Especially for the North American Market the ARK-6 has the possibility to work as Regenerative Translator, one of the greatest evolutions included in the new ARK-6.

The ARK-6 Regenerative Translator accepts modulated RF as an input from the air, regenerates an ASI stream, modulates it on the desired CH and the resulting RF signal is a totally regenerated signal with no degradation. Designed for the Low Power TV station the ARK-6 Regenerative Translator will allow you to edit the PSIP table and the Virtual Channel at your translator site without any extra hardware. This is the perfect solution for the Low-Power TV stations that are looking for a top-edge technology such as: single click adaptive linear and non-linear pre-correction, ATSC-MH ready, internal built-in GPS, several input (ASI, SSI, SMPTE310, GigE IP), and much more.

Find out everything about the new ARK-6 Regenerative Transmitter on our website at www.screenservice.net or write to info@screenservice.net