DCI expands HD capacity with Ateme

DCI recently added new Ateme  hardware to our encoder and decoder inventory.  Three DR5000 receivers were added to our teleport, expanding DCI's capacity to decode ultra low-latency feeds and high quality encoding such as 10-bit 4:2:2 and higher-order modulation up to 32APSK.

On the transmission side, DCI added two CM5000 "Dual Kyron" encoders for on-demand use in the teleport and field.  Our CM5000's feature TWO encoders inside the same box, allowing us to have the most portable 4-path flyaway available in the United States.  The two dual encoders are part of a package which will be broadcasting the pool feeds of the American Embassy opening in Havana on Friday.

These new acquisitions compliment DCI's previous investment in Ateme hardware, which power our ESPN-certified "HD1" uplink truck with high quality H.264 4:2:2 video and 16-channel audio.

Our Ateme hardware is completely software-driven, with enough hardware power for future expansion. In fact, both the CM5000 and DR5000 have the processing power necessary for the new H.265 High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) and DCI will be adding H.265 capability sometime next year with a new firmware release from Ateme.

As one of the oldest independent teleport and SNG operators in the United States, DCI remains committed to staying on the cutting edge of video compression technology.  Contact us to see how we can put this powerful new hardware to use for your next event.



Two Dual Kyron's in a flyaway rack for the American Embassy opening in Havana. Also in the case is a Starcast DVB-S2 L band modulator, Adtec multiplexer, and UpCom IRD.

Live Surgery in Miami and New Orleans

Once again, DCI worked with Boxline Box medical media company to broadcast live surgeries at the Urology on the Beach event in Miami and the American Urologists Association (AUA) the following week in New Orleans. We used a mix of tools, including remotely-controlled satellite ground stations, for another very high quality HD broadcast, although this year it was 2D only. (We did the first-ever live 3D case in 2013 and again in 2014).

The Urology on the Beach event is held around the same time as AUA and attracts a lot of the same attendees and exhibitors.  It is held at the Eden Roc hotel on Miami Beach, and features live surgery broadcast from the University of Miami Hospital about 8 miles away.

The layout of the Eden Roc prevents a traditional satellite truck from parking there, so we used our new second-gen airline flyaway in a receive-only configuration, and using remote control of its receivers so the DCI uplink truck at Miami Hospital could run both sides of the link and maintain full quality control. We used ultra-high quality H.264 10-bit 4:2:2 with AAC-HC audio running at a amazingly low 16kbps for awesome picture and video quality, getting over 13mbps in a 6MHz satellite slot.

Full Remote Control- the receive flyaway was controlled remotely via IP from the SNG truck parked a few miles away. We even requisitioned the hotel room TV as a monitor.

Because of the location of the balcony where the dish was, we had to use Galaxy 18, on the extreme west end of the satellite arc, in order to clear the adjacent building, resulting in a look angle that is much lower than typical for Miami.

Among the palm trees: DCI's 2.4m "HD1" uplink truck shooting at Galaxy 18 from Miami Hospital

View of the remote real-time signal strength monitoring of the Miami Beach flyaway, and some of the DaVinci robotic surgery being broadcast to the convention.

After Urology on the Beach was wrapped, we packed the truck with the flyaway inside and headed 12 hours west to New Orleans for the large AUA show, where DCI arranged transmission for dozens of live cases in both exhibitor booths and the official AUA convention symposium.  We utilized our compact SNG truck for two days of live surgery in Philadelphia, and turned the flyaway around as a transmit source at nearby Tulane, with full remote control of "HD1", which was acting as the downlink facility at the New Orleans Convention Center.  

Cargo SNG truck: Fully-redundant HD flyaway in the back of our "HD1" uplink truck.

Full House: Thousands of urologists from around the world watch our live cases.

Bob Zajko running the flyaway in the back of a pickup truck at Tulane University hospital, with full remote control of the receive truck a few miles away at the Convention Center. We had full router control, live signal strength monitoring, and were able to check video quality of other live cases going on at the same time by receiving them on the flyaway.

A simple but high quality uplink setup inside a crew-cab pickup truck with remote control of the receive truck.

Left: Our modified Norsat mid-setup with a single 400w BUC mounted to custom made bracket and 1:1 redundancy switch.  The second BUC was added next.  Right: Mike Evans of BoxLine Box in scrubs after configuring the Tulane OR site.

"HD1" at the Convention Center was the receive site for all satellite-fed cases at the AUA, including 4 from the Tulane Flyaway, 3 from the DCI truck in Philadelphia, and other brokered trucks around the country that we arranged for the event.  

If you are interested in how DCI can bring this high level of transmission quality control and management of your corporate events, contact us.  If you need to produce a live event or recording of a live surgery in the unique setting of a working operating room, contact BoxLine Box.

2014 in Review

2014 was another busy year at DCI, here are some of our highlights:

Janurary: Ambit Baltimore production
We kicked the year off with a large production and uplink as part of a corporate event held in Baltimore.  DCI provided the transmission, along with the switcher, graphics, cameras and audio in the conference room, including a jib camera. 

February:  Russian Ambassador's Olympic Party

The Sochi Olympics opening ceremony took place late morning DC time, and was not available live in the United States.  We were asked to receive a feed of the event brought in from Russian TV (encrypted, of course, to keep NBC happy).  We parked our compact satellite truck outside of the gilded former Russian Embassy down the street from the White House, which now serves as the Ambassador's residence.  The Ambassador was hosting a party for VIPs to watch the opening ceremony on monitors spread out throughout the reception rooms.  The embassy staff brought Black Sea caviar and tea out to the satellite truck. 

May:  Live Surgery in 3D

DCI and BoxLine Box produced the first-ever 3D surgery broadcast at the AUA convention in San Diego in 2013, for Intuitive Surgical.  The 2013 show was so successful we were asked back to produce all the live surgery at the 2014 convention in Orlando.  After the AUA show, we took the sat truck down to Miami, and did our own downlink using our Norsat flyaway and a remote-controlled receiver for an AUA-related event at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach with the truck transmitting from Miami General Hospital.  Read more about the 3D surgery here. 

July:  Havana and Santiago, Cuba
We took two flyaway systems to Cuba for the second time in as many years. This trip was to cover the state visit of Xi Jinping, President of China, to Cuba.  We set up one system outside the Nacional Hotel in Havana before driving 8 hours across the island to the port city of Santiago for live coverage for Chinese TV.
More from the 2014 Cuba trip.

August:  US-Africa Leaders' Summit
In August 2014, President Obama hosted the US-Africa Leaders' Summit, which was the most heads of state in Washington ever.  With so many VIP's in the city, logistics were difficult, and both of our satellite trucks were present to be the pool feed for host broadcaster Bloomberg TV.  Our HD1 uplink truck provided six muxed HD paths with multiple audio languages, while our compact SNG truck stood as backup.

September:  First ESPN backhaul
A year after finishing our qualification for ESPN in Bristol, we snagged our first job for the network, a college football game in Cincinnati (held in the Brown's stadium) for ESPN-2. including a full 16 channels of audio.

November:  Ferguson, MO
Our HD1 uplink truck travelled to the St. Louis area to cover the rioting in Furgeson.  This was actually the first of two last-minute trips we made for this story, the second was a month later when the grand jury results were announced.  We provided multiple HD and SD uplinks to Europe during this job.

November:  Live Surgery in Vancouver, BC
We provided transportable downlink services in Vancouver, British Columbia for the annual meeting of the AAGL organization.  We arranged the transmission facilities at two hospitals in the United States and performed quality control on the live feeds.  This location was a challenge because tall buildings limited us to edge of the arc satellites, low on the horizon. This resulted in some adjacent satellite interference because of the 1.1m portable antenna, which is more suited for transmitting than receiving.  But we had expected this and planned ahead- purchasing more bandwidth than would normally be used so we could switch to lower-complexity modulation and overcome the noise issues.  The Ateme receivers we brought provided a real-time signal quality graph which assisted in aiming the dish beyond the limits of the portable spectrum analyzer to get optimum signal quality.  The location itself was great- in the shadow of the Vancouver Olympic Torch on one side, and seaplanes landing and taking off on the other side.  Thankfully, Vancouver's persistent rainy weather held off for our event.  More.

December:  COP20 in Lima, Peru
We returned to Lima, Peru for the first time in over 20 years to cover the UN COP20, an annual followup to the Kyoto Protocol climate change meetings.  This is our second COP event, having covered one held in Cancun a few years before.  This was also the second deployment for our new flyaway dish, and it worked flawlessly.  The biggest difficulty was the setup and breakdown, after the event staff tried to cement our cables into place and laid a brick walkway over them. More here.

December 31
We finished up the year with some more live TV, using our camera-back microwave system to cover a New Year's Eve party at DC's famous Howard Theater.  A HD microwave receiver with diversity antennas spread around back stage allowed our camera to roam freely throughout the venue, even go live from the street outside of the theater- all completely wireless to the uplink truck!

 

We are looking forward to another great year in 2015! 

Contact DCI

UN Climate Conference, "COP20" Lima

DCI provided transmission facilities at the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP20), held in Lima Peru for two weeks at the beginning of December.  We deployed our second generation airline flyaway to transmit two SD or 1 HD paths in a 4.5MHz slot on the Satmex 8 satellite.  The recent loss of Satmex 5 to inclined orbit has greatly reduced the occasional use capacity available on the Satmex fleet, one of our favorite for South to North one-hop coverage.

 The Eurovision MCR room (top) and the main venue MCR (below)

A replacement satellite, known as Satmex 7 / Eutelsat 115B will soon be launched!  Using H.264 encoding and DVB-S2 8PSK at very low error correction (FEC) rates of 8/9 allowed us to transmit a HD picture of the same quality typically done in 6 MHz.  By measuring the link margins at the receive side we were able to determine we could successfully use the 8/9 FEC to achieve the same quality in larger bandwidth, with a still-acceptable link margin. 


Setting up was probably the most challenging part of this job, requiring a fiber cable to the cameras that went through two conduits and almost got cemented in place!  The setup took an entire day before we were ready to do liveshots.  

The conference was held on the grounds of a military base known as "El Pentagonito" (The Small Pentagon) and made up of a compound of large temporary buildings.

The event went smoothly, except for the bus rides from our hotel to the venue, which sometimes took over 90 minutes due to the traffic in Lima.

The breakdown was fun, as we had discovered our cables has been squeezed between two sheets of plywood over one of the conduit vaults and had an interlocking brick walkway installed over it.  There was not enough room for the fiber cable head to be extracted through the small space they left, so we improvised and used a screwdriver to break a hole in the plywood and remove the cabling. 



More photos HERE.