3 Italia Powers Italy's Largest Mobile TV Service With OmniBus iTX

3 Italia Becomes World's First Telco to Originate, Aggregate and Distribute Media

3 Italia's iTX facility allows it to produce and aggregate five original channels — including Italy's first mobile-only free-to-air DVBH channel, La3 — and transmit an additional 15 pass-through channels, with program and automated advertising insertion capability on four of the channels. The operation is housed in a new in-house facility in Milan, and went live in July 2008 after a three-month installation, delivering entertainment, news and sports content to a rapidly growing base of more than 850,000 DVB-H mobile TV subscribers.

3 Italia's facility was designed with the aim of bringing playout and production capabilities in-house in a multi-platform environment, to allow more control, greater synergies and flexibility, and a quicker response to market demands.

Designed and implemented under the supervision of 3 Italia's broadcasting technical department, the new facility is powered by an iTX system configured with 5+5 in-house SD playout channels, 4+1 semi pass-through SD channels, master control, logos, stills, voice over and live functionality, with fully redundant G3 framework services. The system is accessed through 12 iTX client stations and has five iTX ingest encoders with VTR control and scheduled record capability. The system provides acquisition, control and processing of all the necessary video and audio content and signals, with control over material caching to the playout storage, and an advanced automation system for transmission.

"Mobile TV is an area of broadcasting that really exemplifies the convergence of technologies," said Ian Fletcher, CTO, OmniBus Systems. "As an IT-based system, iTX is far more convenient and adaptable to the rapid evolution of a service like 3 Italia's, and makes it feasible for the entire transmission operation to be brought in-house. That gives a mobile media operator much greater control over the end product, as well as the ability to develop services more readily in this fast-moving market."

OmniBus iTX is the next-generation solution that makes the conventional broadcast automation, master control and playout chain obsolete. Combining and exceeding all the functions of a conventional transmission chain in a single, integrated suite of software applications, iTX is flexible, open and feature-rich, and offers a significantly more configurable and responsive end-to-end solution for a wide range of operating environments. With market-beating support for SD and HD and exceptional ability to integrate with third-party systems, iTX delivers the most powerful solution available while significantly reducing the investment required to launch and operate high-quality channels in broadcast, IPTV, mobile TV, disaster recovery and business continuity applications.

More information about OmniBus Systems' digital asset management, automation and transmission technology is available online at www.omnibus.tv.

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About OmniBus Systems
OmniBus Systems provides broadcasting, cable, and satellite organizations with comprehensive automation and media content management solutions that address every area of television-related operations. Its newsroom, content, and workflow automation solutions include acquisition and recording of rich media material, low-resolution editing, media asset management, and playout. OmniBus is a global company with headquarters in the United Kingdom and offices in the United States, Germany, and Singapore. More information is available at www.omnibus.tv.

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