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TVBEUROPE HD EUROPE

Just Fabulous TV commits to HO complexBy Chris ForresterThe East End of London hasnever been fashionable, but overthe past year or two it has devel-oping into a centre of broadcast-ing excellence. For example, anondescript factory site justSouth of the River Thames pro-vides the sound stages for someof Kudos Productions' top-flights drama productions suchas Hustle and Spooks.

Across the old factory court-yard, now renamed the TowerBridge Business Complex, you'llfind Just Fabulous TV putting thefinishing touches on a four-studioHDTV-equipped complex inreadiness for 24-hour transmissionof its new TV channel. currentlypreviewing on Sky's EPG at 372.

"That, we hope, will soonchange," says MD Dowshan

content that isn't football or sportor imported American material.We believe our quality Britishcontent could give Sky and itsviewers a different dimension. "

Just Fabulous TV is anunashamed full-service network,with documentaries, drama, com-edy, current affairs and whatHumzah's team stress as "cutting-edge" shows covering music,dance, sport, motoring and more.Some material will be acquired,but much will be produced locally.To help, JFTV is equipping twoaudience-friendly studios (onewith retractable seating for 130,the other accommodating 98),plus blue-screen and green-screenstudios, backed up with 11 editsuites, master control and tape-

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Humzah, who says JFTV wantsto be on the 'general entertain-ment' section of the EPG, andnot seen as a purely music station.Humzah comes to pure broad-casting from his position as cablecompany NTL's director/strategy& planning and earlier experiencewith players like Proctor &

Humzah says HDTV is keyto their commercial plans. "Allour shooting is in HD today andthis helps fulfil our strategy.Obviously we will be transmittingin standard definition initially butas the high-def audience growswe'd hope to migrate to a full highdef service, at least on Sky. But

"The physical investment in these new studios isvery real and we are working all-day shifts toget everything finalised in the next few weeks"Gamble, Hugo Boss and Orange."The physical investment in thesenew studios is very real and weare working all day shifts to get _everything finalised within thenext few weeks. At the momentwe're using third-party suppliersfor all these elements."

also having the fully HDTVequipped facility allows us to rentout studio space to third partiesduring our own downtime. We aretalking to Sky about the opportu-nity this presents and stressing tothem that they have on theirdoorstep British-produced HD

Rap star Lupe Fiasco, being interviewedfor JFTV's In The Mix show..................................................................................................................................................

Polish sports lead with PieroRed Bee Media announced at MIP-COM that it has sold its Piero sportstechnology to Polish broadcaster ITINeovision for the nsportchannel. Pieroenables viewers to see 'play' from anglesthat are not captured by cameras

"There was a lot of interest inPiero at IBC and I'm delighted thatwe have been able to announceanother sale so soon after the event.IT! Neovision will be the sixth broad-caster this year to adopt the system tomake the most of its sports coverage,"said Andy Townsend, design systemsmanager at Red Bee Media.

Red Bee Media developed Pierofrom a BBC Research andDevelopment 'proof of concept' in

HD best Observe'dthrough glass collaboration with BBC Outside

Broadcasts for BBC Sport. Earlierthis year Piero was also adopted bySkyItalla, Hong Kong Cable and TVGlobo in Brazil in time for the WorldCup and later ITV in the UK for itsUEFA Champions League coverage.

The Piero technology places pic-tures of real players into a virtual sta-dium, where it is possible to view andanalyse play from different angles inanimated sequences. It is the onlytechnology of its kind with a transi-tion between original footage and avirtual stadium. Offside, forwardpassing and other offences can beseen from the best angle for analysiswww.redbeemedia.com

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with a niche router manufacturerbecause routers are such a spe-cialised area. It uses Leitch HDGlue and fibre channels and Evertzup and cross converters.

In the separate audio area it hasDolby E 5.1 surround sound, a 2 x64 bi-directional Madi interface,and a "fully-loaded" 480-inputStuder Vista 8 audio mixer, whichseems to have become the standardchoice for OBs recently. "We hadordered a Calrec, but then we sawthis and loved it" - particularly its

Making the conne~tion: HD1's input ports

ergonomic layout and its excellentEQ. It has so many channelsbecause a light entertainment showeasily uses 100 channels and eachEVS has six channels, as do any

soundfield microphones and every5.1 mix. Even a rugby match can useup 120 channels. There is also full5.1 monitoring in the main gallery.www.observe.ie

Alacrity in EgyptAfter a rigorous tender process theERTU in Egypt has awarded a con-tract to Gee Broadcast Systems foreight Alacrity Editors and twoGeevs servers. The AJacrity MRoffers multi-resolution support andallows the editing of mixed formatmaterial in the same project.

The edit suites, configured withsupport for MXF and Sony XDCam,also provide fast editing with sharedmaterial and projects The Lightworksconsole provides an efficient userinterface and facilities are also pro-vided for voice-over.

Each Alacrity editor is based ona Dual processor dual core work-station and has the InscriberTitlemotion CG and Combustioneffects software installed. Using theSharknet Gigabit networking allowseach pair of Alacrity editors to sharetheir own storage and that of a cen-tral NAS store. Archiving facilitiesare provided with the NAS store.

The Geevs SD servers will be con-nected to the AJacrity editing system.by the Sharknet network to provideeasy sharing of material. The serversprovide ingest and playout facilities tocompliment the editing suiteswww.geebroadcast.co.uk

www.tvbeurope.com NOVEMBER 200620

TVBEUROPE HO EUROPE

Just Fabulous TVcommits to HD

OTT householdsset to surgeCurrent forecasts from predictthat the worldwide digitalterrestrial TV market willgrow signficantly over the nextfive years, from an estimated37 million households in 2006,to a forecast 131 million house-holds by the end of 2011.Primarily driven by DTTuptake in Western Europeancountries, the EM EA regionhas experienced the most suc-cess in DTT adoption, and isexpected to comprise nearly62% of worldwide DTT house-holds by 2011, according to[MS Research.

According to analyst MarkMeza, "The success of DTT inEurope is due in large part togovernment and industry ini-tiatives, a growing selection ofcontent, and increasinglyaffordable set-top boxes. Thissuccess has created an opportu-nity for value-added paid DTTservices, such as Top Up TV inthe UK. Paid DTT serviceshave a distinct advantage inmarkets where a free DTT serv-ice has been successful."

Meza continued, "Stand-alone pay DTT services facegreater challenges in establish-ing subscribers, often due tolimited content offerings andpricing that is not competitivewith other pay TV options. Anexample of this is the difficultyfaced by USDTV, which recentlyfiled for Chapter 7 bankruptcyafter securing only about10,000 subscribers in threeyears of operation, as well asearly launches of pay-DTT inthe UK." With the continuedgrowth expected for DTTworldwide over the next fiveyears, IMS Research predictsan accompanying rise in value-added pay-DTT offerings.www.imsresearch.com

www.tvbeurope.com NO VEMBE R 2006

"We recognise that producing content is significantly more expensive thanacquiring material but we hope that our plans to exploit our assets overmultiple platforms and overseas makes the investment worthwhile"

exploit our assets over multipleplatforms as well as the potentialsale value overseas makes theinvestment worthwhile. Ourvision is to take our content and

be a Number One platform. Welike to think we are stylish andsavvy. In addition to our own pro-duced material we are acquiringmovies, documentaries, comedies

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less playout. Arqiva is handlingterrestrial distribution and satel-lite uplinking.

Humzah says he is not justtargeting the ratings enjoyed by r----------------------------------------------------the likes of MTV "We've beenworking here for some ninemonths, quietly preparing forlaunch. We look at [UK chan-nels] Channel Four, Channel 5and channels like Bravo andTrouble and we can see that theyall have good American content.The only way to beat this is tohave great British content for ourtarget audience.

"We recognise that producingcontent is significantly moreexpensive than acquiring materialbut we hope that our plans to

and even a soap that we believefits in with our overall strategy.However our own producedmaterial is also available for saleto third parties. "

JFTV, says Humzah, is muchmore than just about ratings.however. He says the stationhas a duty to be socially aware,and as such is closely in touchwith the local community."Consequently we are develop-ing close relations with theLondon Mayor's Office, thePolice and other leading com-munity organisations."

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