TANDEM GETS INTERACTIVE WITH BSKYB (December 2004)

With an order containing more than 60 modules, BSkyB has decided to use Crystal Vision interface equipment to produce its new interactive portal. BSkyB made full use of TANDEM-200’s advanced audio routing capabilities to produce an output with 16 different audio tracks.

BSkyB is the main satellite broadcaster in the UK and has launched a new service where customers can see 16 pictures on the screen at once, each representing a different programme category such as sport. By using the cursor on the BSkyB remote control, viewers can highlight one of the images to play the audio associated with it.

For this the broadcaster needed to de-embed mono audio from all of the video feeds that would be seen together and transfer a combined audio onto the combined video.

This was where TANDEM came in – it allowed BSkyB to bypass a Zandar mosaic splitter and embed the 16 individual audio feeds into the Zandar output. TANDEM-110 was responsible for de-embedding the audio from each of the 16 SDI signals, which were being fed to the Zandar machine. TANDEM-200s, which can perform full channel shuffling, then utilised all four groups to embed the de-embedded audio back into the Zandar output.

Additional TANDEM-200s were also used to both de-embed and embed 75 ohm AES audio using all four audio groups, prior to and after BSkyB’s Omneon server.

As well as 47 TANDEM-200s and 16 TANDEM-110s, BSkyB also bought six Indigo 2 2U frames in which to house them. It was vital that the equipment was able to function in a small space with the facility for dual powering. The equipment is now in use after an 18th November launch.