IkusiNews January 2012

TELEVISION MAGAZINE JANUARY 2012 Nº 17

“For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece” Interview with Thanassis Kyriakopoulos, Ikusi’s commercial agent in Greece

Discover our new products in http://www.youtube.com/IkusiTV

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New Flashd, the only antenna on the market with automatic fastening system that can be installed with one hand Ikusi has developed and patented the first automatic attachment system on the market New Flashd can be fully installed in just 2 minutes

Ikusi continues innovating to improve and facilitate installer’s regular tasks. The latest example, the new Flashd, the only UHF antenna with automatic fastening system and instant opening.

New Flashd, like the rest of the Flashd range, is characterised by its quick assembly, in just 3 seconds. But it also provides new and important features. The most important one is the first automatic fastening system on the market. A fastening system developed and patented by Ikusi, which allows the antenna to be fixed to the pole with just one hand, protecting the installer from risk of falling and unnecessary dangers. In short, a robust attachment valid for any pole diameter, which makes the installation quicker, easier and, above all, safer.

The fast assembly, together with the easy installation, mean that it takes just two minutes from when you take out the antenna from the packaging until it is fully positioned and secured.

Interview with Cleopatra Christopoulos A guidance service for the Atlantica Sensatory Resort hotel TV network FLASHD array, overcoming the problems of Greek orography

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Interview with Thanassis Kyriakopoulos

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Ikusi...I have a question

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Digital Security: A New Challenge for the Installer

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Ikusi Field Meters: A great many advantages

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MAC HOME, digital home modulator

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our clients speak

“Hotels market and Gap Fillers will keep us alive in this really difficult period” Interview with Cleopatra Christopoulos Christopoulos Panagiotis & Cleopatra is the new generation in Christopoulos Bros Company.

We met Cleopatra and we have the opportunity for some questions: Your company is based in Patra city, which is in the middle of last period activity regarding analogue switch off in Greece. So tell us how you see the situation and the opportunities in your area.

Patra is the 3rd bigger city in Greece and our company has a long history selling electronics and providing support in our area. Last years, I and my brother started extending our business to cover the whole area of West Greece in our activity. The results are very good until now and the last month analogue switch off in Akarnanika area really explodes our business. Next month will be analogue switch off in our city Patra and later we will have more analogue switch offs at cities Kalamata, Tripoli, Ioannina, etc.

All of them will be within 2012, so we are preparing to be

ready, so to cover the needs of all this area installers.

Which are the most popular Ikusi products during Akarnanika switch off and which you believe that will be in the next period?

FLASHD series antennas (all models), SBA series amplifiers (especially the new SBA-202) and the new HD IKUSI STB’s were the most sold products last period. We had high numbers also in our turnover selling professional products like THF, TGT and MAC to projects in city hotels.

What you expect to sell more during next months – what products will be in high demand for 2012?

Definitely ClassA Ikusi products for two reasons: in West Greece and especially in islands like Corfu, Ithaca, Kefallinia, Zakynthos, etc. there is a big number of vacation hotels near the sea which are not operating during winder.

All this hotels will open during April or May and will need to update their HeadEnds so to have the right TV signal in all rooms. As the most of those hotels still have analogue or MPEG2 TV

sets, we expect to sell a huge number of THF and MAC. For the hotels that have replaced their TV sets with new MPEG4 models we will sell MTI, TPC and TGT. On the other hand, West Greece has a very specific geographical terrain with many islands and high mountains, which means that there are in operation more than one thousand analogue re-emitters, so to cover all villages.

After the completion of analogue switch off all these villages have to be covered with DVB-T Gap Fillers and we are experts in this field. So I am confident that for the next years we will sell high numbers of QRA, TPC, TGT, MTI, HRA etc.

What do you think about economic crisis and how is it affecting your business?

I hope that analogue switch off will help in this direction and keep us active. Most of all I believe that hotels market and Gap Fillers will keep us alive in this really difficult period.

“Last 3 years have been very difficult for the Greek market and every year seems to be worst than the previous. We are lucky to be active in a market that always offer something new, so in our company haven’t seen yet all effects of the general economic crisis”.

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reference installation

A guidance service for the Atlantica Sensatory Resort hotel TV network Ikusi... I have a question

problem solved

Installer: MSS Electronics Ltd. (Makatounakis) Official distributor for Ikusi interview products inwith...

Crete island. reference installation

As he has a long experience with hotels projects in Crete, we asked him for a presentation of a typical big and extended Cretan hotel.

Ikusi solutions

Their demand included 5 analogue terrestrial channels, 32 digital satellite channels (15 of them encoded) and 11 info channels.

All these channels should be in a CATV network for all these 750 TV outlets.

This customer demand launching satisfied with Ikusi ClassA products installed in two 42 Unit rack’s in control room.

This hotel asked us for a guidance service for the hotel TV network.

future problem solved

In additional to the above, for this hotel networks used a high number of Ikusi line amplifiers, distribution elements, outlets and coaxial cable.

This year DVB-T comes to Crete, so the Atlantica Sensatory Resort needed to have on it’s analogue TV sets the digital terrestrial channels.

Basic units Used: Atlantica Sensatory Resort in Analypsi (Crete) is one of these hotels with 410 rooms and new developments in Ikusi suites, including inI total analogue TV sets Ikusi... have a750 question and outlets.

4. 11 x MCP-411 Modulator used for info channels 5. 8 x SMR-600 rack frames for the installation 6. 8 x CFP-700 for the power supply of the units.

7. 2 x AMX-400 four input combiner to 24 Channels 8. 2 x HPA-125 Amplifier Module

1. 5 x TPC-010 analogue channel processors for terrestrial Ikusi analogue solutions Channels 2. 15 x SRC-011 Digital Receiver for VSB reception of encrypted Sat-TV programs 3. 17 x SRF-011 Digital Receiver Free to Air for free to air satellite channels

This demand can be easily solved by replacing the TPC-010 units with THF-011 units without any other changes to the hotel network and distribution.

Keeping the terrestrial channels in the same frequency so the TV’s should not be re-programmed.

Ikusi presence

Flashd array, overcoming the problems of Greek orography interview with... did you know that...?

launching

Due to specific geographical terrain in Greece with many islands and high mountains, there are still some areas of small villages with very low level analogue TV signal with poor quality and many echoes. our clients speak

developments in Ikusi The citizens new of these areas are waiting the digital signal to solve all these problems, so to have for fist time excellent quality picture in their TV.

The first batch of digital transmitters started to operate in very high mountains, with an efficient power of many KW, covering main Greek cities, but due to the easy reception future of the digital signals it is possible to receive them in long distance – even hundreds of Km far away.

That was very good for the citizens of areas with weak analogue reception, so many of them tried to receive these signals coming from long distance.

In many cases the demand was not just for citizens, know that...? but for hotelsdid oryou re-emitters in these far away areas, feeding their HeadEnds.

As we know when we have to receive signals from far away transmitters, many problems may occur – the signal is not always in the same level, especially when it is travelling over the sea. our clients speak

The Greek territory has a huge number of analogue re-emitters to cover isolated village, so an additional i-news

problem is that usually on the same frequency for some of the digital streams, coexist some neighbour area analogue transmission received in higher level than the digital stream.

23,5 db clear antenna amplification without any noise insertion and much more narrow diagrams in both horizontal and vertical levels, minimizing any interference from other directions.

So there is a demand in Greece to go in the edge of the art of reception and in the same time to eliminate the interference of two channels in the same frequency.

In the picture you can see such application with 4 x FLASHD antennas, 3 x EAS-102 special coupler and 1 x SBA-120. In this special case the digital streams power with only one antenna was in the limited level of 25-30 dbμV and the unwanted analogue interference in one of the frequencies (channel 48) was more than 45 dbμV. The angle between the two transmitters was exactly 12,5o, so we constructed a metal base to install the antennas in a distance of 99 cm. In this way we decreased the level of the analogue signal by 40 db, eliminating the interference with the digital channel.

For these reasons we study this case and we found that we can have very good results combining two or four FLASHD antennas using EASIkusi presence 102 special couplers and high quality mast head amplifier like SBA-120 (low noise, high amplification and high output lever).

The secret is to install two antennas array in a such horizontal distance that the unwanted channel to arrive on antennas with a delay of half wave length (180o), so to neutralize the unwanted channel on the combiner. In the same time this two antennas combination increase the level (and the quality) of the desirable digital signal by almost 3 db, making the horizontal diagram of the system more narrow than one only antenna.

In the case of four antennas array we have even more amplification by the antenna array: almost 6 db – that means four FLASHD array gain is ~

In this particular application we had many reflections on the sea, so we installed a second level of two more FLASHD horizontal array reducing the vertical angle and the reception of these reflections.

The result was excelled and stable picture in all digital streams. Even in channel 48 for which the initial MER was below 8 db, with this four antennas array, new MER becomes 30 db and VBER becomes 6 -6.

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interview with... launching

“For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece” new developments in Ikusi

Interview with Thanassis Kyriakopoulos, Ikusi´s commercial agent in Greece future

His first contact with Ikusi products was in the mid 80’s. He met and appreciated many of the simple line products (antennas, amplifiers, materials distribution, etc.), but he was really thrilled with the professional equipment (converters, amplifiers with AGC, line amplifiers, etc.).It was did youinknow that...?career, where he met the first time his long professional products with excellent standards and really reasonable and affordable prices, so that became a strong relationship with Ikusi products.

Much later, in 1996, he dealt exclusively with our clients speak the support and promotion of the company’s’ products in Greece and Cyprus, with emphasis on professional equipment. The results of this cooperation were impressive and from the first years of 00’s Ikusi was the leader in sales of professional products in the area of his responsibility.

A milestone on this path was the construction and certification of all the Olympic projects in Athens for the Olympic Games of 2004 (33 venues, athletes’ Olympic village, 13 media villages and 15 more CATV networks).Important was also the constructions of a very large number of Hotels and Gap Fillers during the past 2 year’s partial analogue switch off in Greece.

In that moment it’s compulsory to speak about the economic crisis. From your lons experience point of view, how is the crisis affecting the telecommunications market?

It really is a very important consideration at this time. The european and the global economic crisis made its appearance a little earlier in Greece than in other countries of the European Union because of a number of peculiarities of the Greek economy.

On the other hand, this enables us to see first the events that will soon appear in other markets.

Overall, the Greek market dropped down during the last 3 years but it is certain that the telecommunications market was less affected than other sectors of the economy. In general, electronics and telecommunications are based in new developments embedded in new technologies, which are often not eligible but essential for society and enterprises, so it is natural that the activity of this market remains active compared with other markets.

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Ikusi presence

At this period also, has started gradually the analogue TV switch off, so the impact of the economic crisis in our market is not as pronounced as in other sectors of the Greek economy.

Which do you think will be the main business lines capable of stimulating the market in the short term?

I am confident that for the next 2-3 years the main object of our market will revolve around the completion of the analogue TV switch off.

Apart from sales of the STBs and, generally, the standard equipment of antennas and SMATV, Greece is a country of exceptional beauty and hence highly developed tourism.

It has more than 10,000 hotels, which require some adjustments in their headEnds, in order to provide image on television of the rooms after the switch off.Several of these hotels still have analogue televisions, while a large number of hotels that renewed their equipment between 2004 and 2009 have MPEG2 TVs. The system that DIGEA network provider adopted since the summer of 2009 is MPEG4, so all these MPEG2 TV sets in those hotels are not able to work with MPEG4 without any modification in the hotel headEnds.This means that the THF-011 (ClassA MPEG4 professional receiver with analogue VSB modulator) and MAC-401 (MPEG2 DVB-T modulator) are some of the products that are very useful and popular in the Greek hotels market.

How important is the penetration of Ikusi’s products in Greece?

For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece.In recent years, particularly after the presentation of the amazing FLASHD antenna, the mini headEnds ONE series, the new NBS series amplifier and the DVBT modulators MAC series, has dominated at all levels of the Greek market by providing excellent products at very reasonable price.The secret lies in creating a distribution network of about 10 selected and exceptional distributors in key regions of the country, who sell products with the same price resulting from a low but reasonable markup.

For the needs of hotels that have MPEG4 TV sets, we have many more ClassA solutions (MTI transmodulators, TGT regenerators, TPC digital converters etc), which cover everything a hotel might need for terrestrial & satellite programs, plus any internal hotel & info channels.

There is also the continued promotion and support of products from Ikusi and there have been more than 80 seminars for installers - seminars with 50, 100, 200, even 365 participants in some of them.

Besides the hotel market, important to Ikusi is the gap fillers market too. Because of the mountains and the many islands, Greece has a very specific geographical terrain, which means that the completion of digital coverage will take about 2,000 points of emission. The company offers solutions for every gap filler type by simple digital conversion (TPC) or digital signal regeneration (TGT), and also has the QRA series (Echo Cancellers) that allows the retransmission of a stream in the same channel as the input signal.

Since 2005 there has been created an installers area within ikusi.gr site, offering to installers technical articles and advises, tools, software, price lists, and many more. Today this members. ikusi.gr area has 1.750 registered members. All these installers are being informed in a regular basis about new Ikusi products, new technologies, commercial campaigns, offers, seminars and any other Ikusi activity.This whole policy and action have resulted in the installers to trust the products and expertise of Ikusi in any simple or complicated project.

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In my area town we still have only analogue reception, but there is a very weak reception of far away digital signals in another direction. Can I combine somehow the strong local analogue signals with the weak digital signals?

When we try combine reception from two antennas in different directions, the most common problem is the echoes reception form the opposite direction.

This problem is worst when we have to combine strong signals from the 1st antenna with weak signals from the second antenna. In this case we have to amplify more the weak signals, so in the same time we amplify more the echoes of the strong signals coming from the first direction.

ONE series mini HeadEnds is the ideal solution for this case.

Filtering the signals with 10 groups of channels, you can amplify much more the weak digital signals from the second antenna, rejecting in the same time the echoes of the analogue signals from the first direction.

In this way we can have in the ONE series mini HeadEnds output, the whole spectrum including the initial strong analogue signals and the initially weak digital signals, equalized n the same level and without the analogue signal echoes.

One of my clients has a hotel with 264 rooms in many small buildings, with brand new TV sets including MPEG4 tuner in all rooms. Last month we had analogue switch off in my area, so I installed TGT regenerators in this hotel and all ter-

restrial channels are working perfectly.

All satellite channels installed in the earlier years with SRF modules in this hotel network, are still analogue. The problem is that the customers of this hotel, can’t switch easily from digital channels to the analogue channels, so there are many calls to the reception complaining about that and asking for support. What can I do to solve that?

In the most of the existing TV sets in the market, it is really difficult to switch from digital reception to analogue reception. It is worst when we are referring to a hotel visitor, as he isn’t oblige to know how to combine buttons in the TV control. In this case the hotel has to provide a simple solution to his customers to change the channels by just pushing the (+) and (-) buttons.

That means it is necessary to have all channels in a hotel network in the same format: all analogue or all digital.

In the new era of digital TV it is better to have all channels in digital DVB-T format, so to have the best possible quality, to have even High Definition programs if the TV sets support that, but most of all to be easy to be used by any hotel customer.

Ikusi’s MTI, STC, STF modules (DVB-S to DVB-T transmodulators) is the ideal solution to be used in such cases, so to have all terrestrial and satellite channels in the same DVB-T format within a hotel network.

I have a 5 stars hotel with MPEG2 32” TV sets in all rooms which I bought 3 years ago. In few months in my hotel area will

be analogue switch off, but the digital terrestrial channels will be in MPEG4 format.

What I have to do in order to provide good quality picture in all rooms of my hotel?

You have 3 options: a. If your hotel has a small number of rooms – lets say below 10 rooms – it is better to replace TV sets with new models including MPEG4 tuner. b. If you have a hotel with big number of rooms and many installed satellite channels distributed in analogue format, it is better to convert you upcoming terrestrial MPEG4 DVB-T channels to analogue channels as you did with your installed satellite channels.

THF-011 digital MPEG4 receiver and VSB modulator is the ide al solution for you, especially if your hotel has a big number of rooms in many small buildings.

If you hotel is just in one building and has a medium number of rooms (below 30), you can use a combination of MCP-801 double VSB modulators, plus STB’s. It is not the best solution as it is not exactly what we call a professional solution, but it has lower cost and with some compromise it is working. c. If your hotel hasn’t a big number of installed satellite channels distributed in analogue format, it is better to convert you upcoming terrestrial MPEG4 DVB-T channels to MPEG2 channels.

You can do that using MAC-201 or MACreference installation 401 in combination with some STB’s.

In the case you need more satellite channels; you can use MTI transmodulators, so to have satellite content in DVB-T format also.

Ikusi... I have a question

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Ikusi presence

Digital Security: A New Challenge for the Installer did you know that...?

Anyone who works in television distribution will have come into contact at some point with the world of digital security. Particularly those who work with pay TV platforms, who on a daily basis have to tackle thespeak complications imposed our clients by security (problems with rights acquisition, smartcard replacement campaigns, users that use piracy and blame the installer when it fails, etc.).

With the arrival of digital television, and above all high definition, the security requirements are becoming even more demanding. Places already exist, such as the Nordic countries, where in order to broadcast digital television in communities or private networks it is obligatorily to encode all the broadcasts. In other countries the regulations are not so demanding, or are still evolving, but the following tendencies can be clearly seen: • To require all high definition content from pay platforms to be encoded until it reaches the television.

• To require protected content to have invisible marks (watermarking) that allow its source to be identified in the event it is filtered to unauthorised distribution channels (e.g. the internet).

These restrictions represent an important technological challenge for the professional television installer and their solution providers, as they will find themselves carrying out installations of a level of complexity that was previously reserved for large cable networks.

Below we describe the new security technologies that we will need more and more frequently in collective television installations.

Coded in Header The conditional access systems are divided into those designed for broadcast environments (E.g. Satellite or Terrestrial Digital TV) and those designed for IP environments (E.g.

IPTV Networks, DOCSIS, or WebTV). The main difference between the two is the availability of a return channel that allows the integrity of the security system to be confirmed.

These systems, which are common in large TV distributions, were previously unheard of in hotels and neighbourhoods. Digitalisation and the growing availability of HD content make it necessary for the introduction of coding systems that keep the video protected until it reaches the TV screen. Economic systems already exist for broadcasting networks, such as Vsecure by

Philips, which integrates the decoding in the actual television (thus avoiding the installation of a decoder).

Watermarking Systems As a complement to the installation of a coding system, content providers can also require the implementation of watermarking systems that allow traceability in the event that content is distributed illegally. These watermarks must be undetectable by the viewer, but sufficiently robust to survive the most typical video editing operations, such as: • Recording via digital camera.

• Transcoding to reduce the size of the recording.

• Change in video format (e.g. from MPEG to Windows Media video)

David Domínguez, head of Projects at Ikusi

“Places already exist, such as the Nordic countries, where in order to broadcast digital television in communities or private networks it is obligatorily to encode all the broadcasts.”

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did you know that...?

Ikusi Field Meters: Many great advantages our clients speak

reference installation

Ikusi... I have a question

problem solved

The main advantage of Ikusi’s DSA field strength meters is the spectrum representation speed, which is the fastest and most stable on the market. Other devices with similar sampling speeds display a difference in reading from one instant tointerview the next, differences of 3-4 dB, comwith... pared to less than 0.5 dB with our devices.

In the same way, Ikusi meters offer the option of real time “echo measuring”, whilst others take seconds to recognise and display the signal on the screen. This quality is highly regarded by the installer, who carries out the measuring and

header to be equalised with just one screen, as well as the memorising of the spectrum where the saved spectrum is overlapped with the realtime spectrum.

“The main advantage of Ikusi’s DSA field strength meters is the spectrum representation speed” Ikusi solutions

adjustment tasks, often at the top of a tower or an antenna in an uncomfortable position in which any time savings are appreciated. Ikusi’s meters display all the measurements on one screen, including the image of everything that is being measured.

Other options highly rated by our customers include the bar spectrum screen that allows a launching

On the other hand, we can add all Ikusi meters that have such user-friendly software that you barely need to read the manual, unless you need it for very specific or uncommon tasks.

new developments in Ikusi

Mac Home, stand alone modulator for home installations future

Easy installation, quality modulation and image and did you know autonomy arethat...? the main characteristics of Mac Home our clients speak

Ikusi presence

Ikusi continues to develop solutions to meet the specific needs of single family homes, on this occasion, by launching onto the market the new AV-COFDM Mac Home modulator model.

Mac Home is a digital apartment modulator which, like the rest of the Ikusi Mac range, can send to the television in DTT format the video and audio signals from a satellite receiver, a closed-circuit camera, an entry-phone or any other video-audio source.

Mac Home has been specially designed to attend to video-audio signal distribution needs in single family homes. The Mac Home incorporates additional video-audio channels to the DTT channels. Making it easier to select the contents you want to watch from the TV’s remote control.

Using the TV’s remote control you can select the contents you want to watch. As well as being

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easy to use, it is also of high quality, and all of this at a very competitive price.

Mac Home also has a pleasing aesthetical design to ensure it blends in well with the decoration in the home.

Like the rest of the range, Mac Home is an autonomous modulator, due to its individual power supply, and it can also be programmed without the need for external control, which results in a simple configuration.

In addition, MAC modulators offer a quality broadcast, which enables images to be distributed with an excellent signal; they have a simple LCD interface, updatable software and a replaceable power supply.

A range of characteristics -easy installation, quality modulation and image, autonomy and spectral purity- which make them attractive for all small installations.

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