PHILIPS DIGITAL NETWORKS For immediate release
11 August 2000
Philips helps NOW in simultaneous Web and TV broadcasting
Philips Digital Networks is contributing to an innovative on-line venture of the London, UK broadcast provider NOW. The venture will initially broadcast live via satellite-to-cable distribution on AsiaSat 3S in 63 countries, offering to viewers, synchronised delivery of both Web and TV programming. The Philips contribution includes digital broadcast cameras, and switching, routing and control equipment.
Eindhoven, the Netherlands - Employing an extensive range of Philips broadcasting equipment, the world`s first fully converged on-line service, NOW (Network of the World) has recently completed their new ambitious facilities in the heart of London.
This innovative on-line venture will initially broadcast live via satellite-to-cable distribution and free to air, on AsiaSat 3S in 63 countries to a potential 135 million households whilst simultaneously being available globally on the World Wide Web. A key feature of NOW is the 100 per cent assured synchronization of the simultaneous Web and TV broadcast.
The 200+ strong production team at NOW`s London facility will initially generate four hours of live on-line content seven days a week. To accomplish this and to ensure the highest professional standards, Transworld International (TWI), in partnership with the Pacific Convergence Corporation, has purchased seven Philips LDK100 cameras, three for the virtual studio and four for the main studio. The most comprehensive demands of the larger studio are perfectly met by the provision of a fully featured top-end Philips DD35-3 switcher. This switcher, providing the studio with 48 inputs, is tightly integrated with a 64 x 64 Philips Venus router ensuring that, at all times, source mnemonics to the under-monitor displays are transparently transferred through the system.
Two further 64 x 64 Venus routers fulfil essential tasks in the editing and line-in areas, all controlled by a Philips Jupiter facility control system that offers leading-edge path finding software. The association of the three routers and Jupiter control ensures that all the routers are continuously and intelligently integrated into the switcher control and central resources.
Mick Kinsella, head of Operations at NOW, commented on the start-up of the new facilities: "We chose Philips because of the completeness of the package; the DD35 switcher together with the Venus router is the most flexible combination available and best suited to NOW`s ambitious project. Added to this, the LDK100 camera has already become established in London studios and elsewhere as an outstanding performer both operationally and for its technical performance, and is especially well suited to news and fast-moving productions of the type that we present."
Announcing the order, Bill Leadbetter, account manager at Philips Digital Networks in the UK, added: "We are particularly proud to be associated not only with one of London`s newest facilities but with one that is challenging the very model of traditional broadcasting, and in doing so is bringing the convergence of the Web and the broadcaster closer together."
