[SatNews] ATEME has announced that SATCOM, a German service provider for satellite transmission and outside broadcast (OB) vans, has selected ATEME’s Kyrion encoders to upgrade its satellite news-gathering (SNG) and OB vehicles from SD MPEG-2 to HD MPEG-4.

SATCOM provides turnkey solution for live news production SATCOM is a market leader in the field of remotely managed SNG vehicles, operating and selling fleet solutions across Europe. The company provides customers, such as TV news station N24, with a turnkey solution known as SATCOM easyLINK™.

Television news station N24—a leading,German-based TV news channel—depends on reliable, foolproof equipment and is part of the Axel Springer SE media group that broadcasts live coverage to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. News journalists operate their own SNG vehicles and rely on SATCOM easyLINK for direct operations with remote support from SATCOM.

The Kyrion CM5000 modular encoder is integrated into the news vans and SATCOM selected Kyrion, ATEME’s high performance contribution and distribution encoder, for its interoperability, reliability, low delay and future proof technology. So far, five vehicles have been upgraded and there are plans to convert additional vans throughout 2014. The CM5000 permits complete software upgradeability from SD to HD or 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 10-bit.

Thomas Becke, CEO, SATCOM, said, "Our customers rely on us to provide them with state-of-the-art equipment that allows them to produce high-quality, live video production. By integrating ATEME’s CM5000 encoders into our turn-key solutions, we are able to deliver reliable, easy-to-use production equipment."

Joerg-Rainer Utech, Broadcast Technology Director, N24, said, "SATCOM easylink with ATEME’s encoders has become an integral part of our operational set up, and our editors just love the simplicity of the system. This is why we chose it to cover the world cup in Brazil, where we will dispatch two vehicles and hope to report on the successes of our national team."

The ATEME infosite can be viewed at http://ateme.com/