Macedonia’s 60-ch system from Tandberg
Chris Forrester
03-09-2009

On.net, Macdonia’s new MPEG4 digital terrestrial system, is using Tandberg’s head-end technology.

On.net is a subsidiary of Telekom Slovenije and will be transmitting 60 channels including a pair in HDTV. The nationwide digital TV service will increase the number of channels available for Macedonians, who are currently limited to five national channels when receiving analog transmissions today.

On.net is using MPEG-4 AVC video compression to maximise bandwidth efficiency and enable high definition channels. The number of channels represents one of the largest DVB-T deployments anywhere, fulfilling a pay-TV business model.

“Digital terrestrial TV has been a widespread success in other European countries and we expect it to have a similar impact in Macedonia,” said Predrag Cemerikic, CEO at On.net. “We selected Tandberg Television as our project partner because of its vast experience helping network operators introduce DVB-T services. The company’s MPEG-4 AVC video encoders provide excellent picture quality at low bitrates, enabling us to fit as many channels as possible into the terrestrial spectrum that is available, and keeping our transmission costs to a minimum.”

“We have an outstanding heritage in the DVB-T market and are delighted to work with On.net to make pay digital terrestrial TV a reality in Macedonia,” added Simon Frost, DTT business development director at Tandberg Television. “Our head-end solution is specifically optimised for DVB-T/T2 with dense multiplexing and SFN MIP insertion as well as distributed compression and multiplexing. Our Reflex statistical multiplexing technology means On.net can encode channels in one location and multiplex them into the final groups for transmission in another. It is very efficient.”