Galaxy Latin America Taps Grass Valley Group's Profile XP Media Platform in $1.2 Million Deal for DIRECTV in Latin America—Digital Satellite Service Provider to Replace VTRs in California Broadcast Center with 80 Digital Channels of Program Ingest, Playout—Today's announcement follows the worldwide debut last month of the Profile XP Media Platform at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. With a completely new architecture, the platform supports standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) signals and provides a portal for rapid access, management and distribution of video, audio and data assets—all while maintaining the broadcast-quality video and audio for which the Emmy® award-winning Profile server line is known. The platform is part of a new wave of next-generation products across all major Grass Valley Group lines spawned by a two-year, $60 million research and development effort. "Our customers have said unequivocally that their single most important asset is their digital media content," said Tim Thorsteinson, president and chief operating officer of the Grass Valley Group. "The Profile XP Media Platform gives them the freedom to simply, efficiently, flexibly and reliably manage that content from a single platform without compromising quality." "Our charter is to deliver the highest quality digital programming to DIRECTV subscribers in Latin America," said Philip Aaland, director of engineering at DIRECTV, Inc.'s California Broadcast Center. "The Profile XP Media Platform gives us the ability to manage our digital assets easily, letting us focus on the creativity necessary to make the most of them." The California Broadcast Center facility will use the Profile XP Media Platform units in a mirrored configuration to provide 40 redundant channels of playout. It will also network the platforms with its existing PDR300 MPEG Profiles that provide ingest and automated playout via a switched, Fibre Channel network. The Profile XP Media Platform surpasses conventional digital video server capabilities by delivering higher and more robust performance, setting new standards for flexibility and reliability, and featuring prices up to 30 percent lower than previous models. The platform offers 600 Megabits of bandwidth, up to eight channels and enables users to upgrade from SD to HD with a change of codec and I/O boards. The Profile XP Media Platform features the SoftwareBus open software architecture, which incorporates the industry's most comprehensive video server applications programming interface (API). It also offers ContentShare™ plug-ins to facilitate worldwide access to any type of media asset, no matter where it's located, who created it or how it is being managed. And it is the only product of its kind to offer an integrated frame buffer to ensure uninterrupted feeds and video/audio synchronization in delayed feeds. The Profile XP Media Platform also offers numerous redundancy features, including dual loop Fibre Channel RAID arrays, server mirroring and hot swappable power supplies and IP networking and remote diagnostics. And its SNMP-based remote monitoring enables paging or e-mail alerts if a server component fails. DIRECTV is the first digital direct-to-home entertainment service to reach Latin America and the Caribbean and is the leading provider of satellite television in the region. The California Broadcast Center in Long Beach, Calif., is responsible for delivering pay-per-view programming from the DIRECTV service to Latin America and shares uplink responsibilities with other GLA facilities in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina. DIRECTV is a registered trademark of DIRECTV, Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics Corporation. The earnings of Hughes Electronics are used to calculate the earnings per share attributable to GMH (NYSE symbol) common stock. Galaxy Latin America, LLC ("GLA") is a multinational company whose ownership includes DIRECTV Latin America, a Hughes Electronic Corporation company, and the Cisneros Group of Companies. GLA is based in San José, Costa Rica and has offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Caracas, Venezuela; Fort Lauderdale, USA; Mexico City, Mexico and São Paulo, Brazil. Galaxy Latin America™ and GLA™ are trademarks of Galaxy Latin America, LLC. Visit GLA on the World Wide Web at www.directvamericas.com. Grass Valley Group is a privately held digital broadcast and video equipment company at the forefront of the transition to digital transmission and video content production and has more than $2 billion of equipment installed worldwide. Whether it's distributing video over the air, through digital broadcast facilities and across standard data networks, or providing the industry's best video storage and production products, the Grass Valley Group has the digital solution. Its product lines include the Emmy award-winning Profile digital video server family and the Grass Valley™ router, switcher and modular product lines. For the latest Grass Valley Group product information, see www.grassvalleygroup.com. # Grass Valley Group and Profile are registered trademarks and Grass Valley and ContentShare are trademarks of Grass Valley Group Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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