IN BRIEF
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/1/2001
Thales Springs Into Action
On Sept. 11, Southwick, Mass.-based Thales Broadcast & Multimedia (formerly Thomcast Communications) mobilized to help broadcasters knocked off the air in New York City.
At a transmission site in Alpine, N.J. (just north of the city) Thales engineers installed a 30 kW IOX analog tube transmitter for Telemundo's WNJU-TV. Another analog solid-state transmitter, on its way to Oregon, was rerouted and driven to Alpine for the PBS station WNET(TV).
A third IOX analog tube system, stored in a nearby company office, was quickly put on the air in East Orange, N.J., for Paxson's WPXN-TV. The station plans to move to Alpine later this year.
Sean Brushett, vice president of marketing for Thales Multimedia, said that his team also helped get Fox's WNYW-TV back on the air from the Empire State Building. They sent station engineers an analog exciter to use with their Thales digital transmitter already located there.
Virage expands software line
Looking to help media companies manage and distribute their assets via cable TV and the Internet, Virage Inc., San Mateo, Calif., has introduced the latest additions to its SmartEncode family of products: VideoLogger 5.0, Software Developer Kit 5.0 and ControlCenter 2.0.
When used together, the company says, the software automates such labor-intensive processes as video encoding, indexing and delivery and permits sophisticated control over digital files.
