WPIX-TV Employs TANDBERG Television Tools for HDTV Baseball Broadcast in NYC

Orlando, Fla. --(Jun. 26, 2001)-- TANDBERG Television’s E5100 digital ENG encoder with COFDM modulation, E5820 HDTV encoder, and PMRX 5800 receiver were all a part of New York’s HDTV history when Tribune affiliate, WPIX-TV, produced and aired the local Mets/Yankees baseball game in true 1080i HDTV in New York City on June 15. This marked the first full power HDTV broadcast from the new combined antennae facility for six local affiliates (NBC, ABC, UPN, WB, PBS, and PAX) at New York’s World Trade Center. This was also the first New York Mets’ game broadcast in HDTV and the first full 1080i HDTV broadcast for WPIX.

Although delayed by harsh weather conditions this winter, the Mets/Yankees HD broadcast occurred within 24 hours after the consortium of stations sharing the new digital transmitter antenna began testing operations in full power.
The interleague Major League Baseball game between the New York Yankees and New York Mets was broadcast in true high definition (1080i with 16:9 aspect ratio) over WPIX’ digital channel, UHF channel 33, for consumers with HDTV.

“This was a critical broadcast for us, and everything went according to plan,” recounted WPIX Engineering Manager Ralph Augenfeld. “The only wrinkle was that our Air 11 digital helicopter was within the flight path of LaGuardia Airport. But with a long lens and a digital transmitter, we were able to capture the images we wanted, while shooting from a mile away. Although it wasn’t within a direct line of sight, the signal remained strong in the digital mode throughout the broadcast.”

The station’s Air 11 helicopter is equipped with TANDBERG Television’s E5100 digital ENG encoder with COFDM modulation. The helicopter provided the evening’s aerial beauty shots. The helicopter’s TANDBERG Television COFDM system transmitted a serial digital image that was upconverted to HDTV in the mobile truck, mixed with signals from cameras throughout the stadium, and all was sent through the truck’s E5820 HD encoder, in a 50 Mbs per second ASI stream via the 270 Mbs fiber line. The PMRX 5800 receiver at the WPIX studio received the signals from an Artel Digilink fiber receiver and performed the decoding back to full HD-SDI. The HD baseball coverage was integrated with the station’s 1080i commercials at the studio and transmitted back over another fiber line to the World Trade Center, after being compressed and converted to SMPTE 310.

For more information, visit www.tandbergtv.com

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