Allegro 3GPP Mobile TV Transcoders Operated by GO

Maltese Mobile Operator GO Uses Allegro Transcoders for 3GPP Mobile TV and WMV

PARIS — GO p.l.c., Malta’s leading quadruple-play operator, uses Allegro transcoders for simultaneous 3GPP Mobile TV and WMV broadcasting.

Allegro AL2000 transcoders enable the same program to be broadcast simultaneously to three screens, reaching the widest possible audience on IPTV, Internet TV and Mobile TV. Transcoders ingest compressed audio/video content, integrate operations such as video resize, frame rate change, and audio adjustment, and deliver it transcoded to a variety of codecs and transport modes, adapted to DVB, 3GPP, iPhone, Windows Media, Silverlight, Flash, ISDB-Tb, and T-DMB players, mobile phones, and set-top boxes. A single 1 RU unit delivers up to 32 encoding profiles for unrivaled integration. It also offers redundancy, advanced network options, and graphical control for easier operation.

GO is currently operating Allegro AL2000 transcoders for delivering Mobile TV over a nationwide 3G/3.5G (HSDPA) network. Twenty-four live channels are delivered to GO mobile subscribers using 3GPP (RTSP) streaming and a selection of local channels broadcast over broadband using WMV. The integrated Allegro solution enables the operator to re-purpose content from the Digital Terrestrial TV Headend enabling it to reach its viewers whether they are in front of the TV, using their mobile phone or on the PC.

Kelvin Camenzuli, Senior Manager of GO’s Video and Network Operation Centres, commented “We wanted to re-use the MPEG-2 streams from our all-IP headend core to offer content to our mobile and broadband subscribers. Allegro transcoders fit the requirements perfectly: efficient and high quality transcoding on a flexible and intuitive platform”.

Henry Gauci, Technical Architect at GO, who leads the integration and development of GO’s multimedia services added, “We also plan to use this platform to improve our mobile TV viewer’s experience since it can provide us with multirate streams capable of enabling dynamic bitrate adaptation”.