Given the subsidy program it became obvious that a satellite distribution service was too expensive. Optivision worked closely with a local system integrator and a telecommunications service provider to architect and configure the network design. Television programming and news obviously required broadcast quality video which dictated the need for compressed MPEG-2 digital video as offered by Optivision. In addition, the central control site required direct control of all video capture points with flexibility to manage video and audio bit rates and network parameters. An open industry standard data network approach relying on MPEG-2 over IP and SNMP was chosen.
Local news is broadcast locally and simultaneously encoded and transmitted to other sites.
The decoding channel is used to receive another sites broadcast. Standard IP multicast protocols are used to minimize bandwidth load on the E3 communications lines so that all sites can simultaneously receive all multicasted content. Industry standard SNMP is supported in all Optivision products so that the central site can exercise full direct control. Future enhancements can easily be integrated into the centralized control site such as automatic scheduling of the broadcasts and other automation features. Copyright 1999, Optivision Incorporated.