WIN TV very impressed with its new MediaHub/Ateme headend

When WIN TV’s broadcast compression system had reached its useful lifespan, the Australian media network turned to long-term technology partner MediaHub Australia for a new solution that will support the latest features needed for WIN’s broadcast over the next few years.

Simon Scott, MediaHub Australia’s Chief Digital & Information Officer, explained, “WIN were seeking a full outsource of their headend and looking for a ‘headend-as-a -service’ offering. Their requirements were substantial, for 158 channels of compression encoding, Statmux, and Muxing from SMPTE 2022-6 IP source playout streams.

“They also wanted a fully redundant system included that has the backup system hosted in another datacentre.”

MediaHub partnered with Ateme to provide a solution that met all of WIN’s requirements. This includes using Ateme Titan Live and Ateme Titan Mux software running on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) compute servers. As well as the Ateme Titan Live and Ateme Titan Mux software running on COTS equipment, the solution MediaHub provided for the new WIN TV headend includes using MediaHub’s FibreHub services for inter-datacentre connectivity of over 200Gbps, to connect both the main and backup system across the two datacentres.

Full SI services were provided by Magna Systems for the physical deployment across the two sites.

Stevan Djokic, WIN TV’s GM Television Operations, said, “The WIN network transitioned onto its new Ateme headend and we have been very impressed with the ease with which we have been able to change transmission formats.

“The industry is pushing hard to move to full MPEG4 with a mix of HD and SD, and more focus on having as many channels as possible in HD. So far, we are very happy with the picture output and look forward to pushing boundaries further in order to give regional Australia even higher quality pictures by using our new MediaHub Ateme headend to its full capabilities.”