On Digital Media

On Digital Media (ODM) in South Africa needed to build a robust DTH platform from scratch on a very tight schedule for its Top TV service. SES provided some ingenious engineering solutions to the problem for the second largest pay-TV operator in South Africa.

SES had to integrate the broadcast systems for Top TV seamlessly with NDS conditional access encryption, an electronic programme guide (EPG), a system for programming schedules, metadata gathering and a media asset management system. All of this was for an initial line-up of 53 TV and 25 radio channels with space for future expansion. The channels are fed from the Top TV head-end at its Johannesburg headquarters via a double-redundant sea-cable fibre to Unterföhring, Germany. Here they are combined with other channels before uplinking.

“We looked closely at the world’s best service providers in the broadcast media industry,” said Frans Lindeque, ODM’s chief operational officer. “But when we examined the standard proposed by SES Platform Services, we were impressed. Their overall performance and the quality levels they met were superb. In fact, the operational standards are incredible.”