[SatBroadcasting(tm)] At CABSAT MENA 2011, ASBU, Arabsat and Newtec are offering extended services and products for fast news gathering (FNG) and HDTV contribution and exchange on the Multimedia Exchange Network Over Satellite (MENOS™) platform for existing and new customers throughout the MENA region.

FNG on the MENOS platform offers a range of benefits that bring FNG within reach of any broadcaster or news agency. Existing FNG solutions such as BGAN/Thuraya are used by major broadcasters but at very high operational costs. At a fraction of the operating expense, MENOS FNG opens up the opportunity for any broadcaster to procure an FNG capability at a very attractive total cost of ownership. MENOS FNG is also based on open standards, such as DVB-S2 and MPEG-4 AVC SD. The rapid rate of development of MPEG-4 AVC equipment ensures that quality for a given bit rate will continue to improve, making it a very competitive and future-proof environment for broadcasters investment. Other mobile satellite system FNG solutions are based on unilateral (point-to-point) contributions from the news reporters to the news room of the individual news agency or broadcaster. Any further redistribution of this content is managed at the discretion of the receiver, and this can introduce unacceptable delays and costs for transmitting breaking news events. By contrast, MENOS supports a unique capability of multilateral live FNG: The contributing flyaway FNG can choose to multicast the live content to a selected list of MENOS TV and FNG receivers, gaining the capability to simultaneously contribute live to multiple news rooms.

Also employing MPEG-4 AVC encoding in HDTV, the new range of terminals supports HDTV-capable contribution and exchange feeds. A program of MPEG-4 AVC HDTV interoperability tests, carried out at ASBU HQ Tunis in October 2010, has determined optimum operating methods for HDTV over the MENOS network. The recent evolution of commercial MPEG-4 AVC HD encoders and decoders allows MENOS to offer 720p and 1080i HD at 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 chroma while optimizing the satellite bandwidth needed to provide these HD contribution and exchange services.