ISSUE 05 // JULY 10
Award
Nagravision helps bring award-winning digital TV to rural Brazil
Brazilian television network and Nagravision customer Rede Globo (also known as TV Globo and Globo) was recently named a winner of the 9th annual Broadcast Engineering Excellence Awards for having brought digital TV services to rural areas of Brazil.
Called the ‘digital television for rural areas’ project (TVDR) TV Globo aims to better serve rural communities and digitise the analogue satellite signal before analogue technology becomes obsolete. Committed to keeping regional Brazilian cultures alive through local and affiliated programming efforts TV Globo designed a system targeted at rural areas based on GPS technology developed by Nagravision.
An industry first, the geo-control technology permits television signal transmission selectively based on the consumer’s geographical location, for example preventing reception outside Brazil. This is a key feature to protect the rights of premium events such as the World Cup. Instead of viewers randomly picking up national programming signals, consumers can rely on high quality digital regional programming with more localised content and advertising from local sponsors.
Nagravision provided the system design and integration for this project, including a NAGRA system and pre-integrated set-top boxes configured with geographical localiser chips to receive local content broadcast from the satellite. TVDR is initially being launched with only one national digital signal in standard definition (SD) but regional signals will replace the national one, region by region, and SD signals will be replaced by HD technology. Millions of analogue receivers for HD-ready set-top boxes will be replaced as part of the ongoing conversion of terrestrial distribution to digital in the cities, as well as regionally.
Serving 99.5 per cent of the Brazilian population, TV Globo produces 90 per cent of its programming, including 2500 hours of soap operas and more than 1800 hours of news programmes per year. It’s a free-to-air TV network with a business model basely purely on advertising. With its mission to keep regional cultures alive in conjunction with its 121 affiliated TV stations throughout Brazil, TVDR is the perfect solution.
The joint TV Globo/Nagravision system is already available in Rio de Janeiro and a retail solution for home viewers will available throughout Brazil later this year.
This technology and TVDR will give the entire Brazilian countryside access to high-definition digital TV, solving the old equation of overlap with terrestrial content. With plenty of competition for home viewers in Brazil, Globo is showing true foresight in its preparation for the future of digital television, both for its consumers and for content providers by assuring secure content management.
For more information about Globo’s TVDR services, please visit:
