...the STAR Pro Audio receivers within its worldwide network. IDC unveil their newest STAR receiver at NAB 2012, Las Vegas, last week. With a presence in each country where Radio Maria broadcasts, World Family of Radio Maria operates a vast, global broadcast network on an IDC satellite radio distribution platform. World Family of Radio Maria currently delivers Catholic radio programming in multiple languages to over 1,500 transmitter locations in 56 countries. Having successfully deployed earlier generation IDC radio receivers, Radio Maria has now qualified and started to deploy the new STAR Pro Audio receiver series.
The highly reliable STAR Pro Audio receiver, which features the latest open standard modulation and audio compression technologies, offers the ideal replacement platform for satellite radio networks based on older technologies that are nearing end of life, as well as offering state-of-the-art performance for new network builds. The ability to combine efficient DVB-S2 demodulation with AAC audio decoding reduces annual satellite bandwidth requirements and drives down customers' operating costs. The STAR Pro Audio receiver series now includes three models that support different decoder configurations. Combining multiple decoders in one chassis reduces the investment cost for radio networks delivering more than one channel to each transmitter site.
Additionally, the Company has signed a contract with Thaicom Public Company Limited which, in conjunction with their customer, will own and operate a satellite cinema distribution system throughout south east Asia.
Under this contract, IDC’s Centient™ Media Aware Content Distribution Network (CDN) platform will be deployed to secure and manage live and file based content for satellite distribution to IDC receivers at 3,000 cinemas throughout Thailand and other countries within the reach of the Thaicom footprint. The value of the contract is being withheld at the request of the customer. The Centient Media Aware CDN system will manage the ingest of movies and the distribution of live content as supplied by their customers via the Thaicom network operations center based in Bangkok. Cinemas will be equipped with the IDC Pro Cinema receiver which provides satellite reception of secured live events and encrypted files for use within these cinemas. The Pro Cinema receiver implements addressable decryption of live events and secure storage of movies. In addition, it allows multi-lingual subtitling and offers a high performance video playout system with integrated real-time watermarking. Watermarking will protect content and deter piracy by allowing the tracking of illegal copies back to a specific cinema. Provision is also made for future 3D operations as studios ramp up their 3D productions.