Charter Communications Inc. will raise the resolution of its new HDNet
programming with gear from Wegener Communications.
The St. Louis-based MSO -- which recently struck a deal to bring Mark Cuban's
HDNet and HDNet Movies high-definition-television channels to its programming
lineup -- will deliver the signals using Wegener's integrated
receiver-decoders.
Placed at the headend, IRDs take signals from satellite feeds, peel away the
encryption and send the signal out to customers. The Wegener "UNITY 4422 IRD"
can support analog and digital outputs, but in the Charter deployment, its
digital capabilities will be the focus.
The fact that the Wegener IRD also sports an asynchronous serial interface
didn't hurt, either.
"Wegener provides us with a reliable satellite IRD that is compatible with
HDNet programming and also provides us with the right ASI digital output to
integrate into our digital-cable plant," said Pragash Pillai, Charter's senior
engineer of video technologies, in a release.
