Lucent/Harris again..........................................
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Lucent Technologies, Harris Join To Deliver DTV Encoders
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Lucent Technologies [LU] and Harris Corp. [HRS] are both feeling well-positioned to be major players in the DTV industry after inking an agreement in January that will supply the broadcast industry with co-marketed DTV encoders.
The alliance, which was announced Jan. 21, arrives just in time to support the more than 1,600 broadcasters that will shift their operations from NTSC to DTV between November 1998 and May 2003, as per the mandate the FCC handed down in December 1996.
Under the agreement, Harris has exclusive rights to market Lucent's new MPEG-2 digital video encoders to the DTV industry in North America.
Marketed under the brand name Harris FlexiCoder, the new encoder leverages Lucent's existing MPEG-2 encoder technology, which is based upon the MPEG-2 digital video and audio compression standard.
Although the encoder uses Lucent's MPEG-2 encoder. Harris provided some of the engineering behind the FlexiCoder as well, via its broadcast division, which is a leading supplier of DTV transmitter equipment and systems integration services.
Harris officials said its broadcast engineers modified Lucent's existing MPEG-2 Digital Video System so the encoder would interface with the exciters in Harris' DTV transmitters (in accordance with the SMPTE 310M standard approved in January 1998).
"This encoder is a key component that fits between the output of the studio and the input of the DTV transmitter... this new encoder is critical to the implementation of DTV," said Jay Adrick, vice president of broadcast systems for Harris Broadcast, in Florence, Ky.
While this alliance is limited to over-the-air transmission applications in North America, Lucent is focused on the growing international demand for digital video encoders, estimating the worldwide market to be between $200 million and $1 billion over the next eight years. Lucent's worldwide marketing plans target many high-growth technology sectors, including the (predominantly European) DVB digital broadcast standard, DVD, wireless cable, Internet streaming, DBS satellite, and microwave transmission.
To pursue these markets, Lucent's New Ventures division has formed several new entrepreneurial business groups to market the innovative technologies and products developed by its research and development division Bell Labs.
While Lucent and Bell Labs were still part of AT&T [T], Bell Labs developed a broad range of products- such as fiber optic cable, and ATM and Sonet networking products-intended for use by the Regional Bell Operating Companies, GTE, and other major telecommunications carriers. Today, these networking products can be complementary to the digital video encoders in an all-digital broadcast infrastructure.
At the heart of the Harris Flexicoder is Lucent's MPEG-2 Digital Video System, a modular (4:2:2 Main Level@ Main Profile) encoder that can be configured for SDTV multicasting, or single-channel HDTV transmission via a single DTV channel. The system's configuration can be easily changed by swapping boards. And, a second system can be added for redundancy in critical applications.
Depending upon the system's configuration, the FlexiCoder costs between $90,000 and $460,000. Harris has already received orders for the FlexiCoder from A.H. Belo Corp., one of the leading broadcast companies in the United States, and WSB-TV, a Cox Broadcasting station, in Atlanta.
"The lack of encoding equipment has been a major concern for broadcast," says Bruce Allan, vice president and general manager for Harris Broadcast, "We can now deliver the most advanced and flexible encoders available. This is another important step to helping broadcasters move seamlessly to the next generation of television."
Harris Broadcast is recognized as a pioneer in DTV as a member of the HDTV Grand Alliance, having developed the RF Test Bed used by the Advanced Television Test Center, in Alexandria, Va., to evaluate all digital television systems proposed for the U.S. market. Harris supplied digital transmitters for HDTV demonstrations worldwide, and last year, a Harris transmitter became the first in the U.S. to broadcast commercial digital television signals.
Today, Harris transmitters are in use by six of the seven experimental DTV stations in the U.S., including PBS affiliate WETA (Washington, D.C.), KCTS-TV (Seattle), WCBS-TV (New York) and WRAL-TV, (Raleigh, N.C.).
Among its high-profile achievements, Lucent built the industry's first MPEG-2 and HDTV encoders, and played a significant role in the development of the MPEG-2 standard, adopted worldwide. Lucent also won an Engineering Emmy in 1997 for its pioneering work in DTV as a member of the HDTV Grand Alliance.
"The transition from analog to digital television is an historic shift for the broadcast market, and our alliance with Harris signals that we are ready to provide key elements for this transition," says Andreas Papanicolaou, general manager of Lucent's Digital Video Group. "Our alliance with Harris Corporation offers broadcasters an intelligent and comprehensive path to DTV." (Lucent, 908/508-8673; Harris, 606/282-4800) |
