At the NCTC Winter Educational Conference, Jan. 26-27, in San Antonio, Texas, R.L. Drake, a leading global provider of digital and analog cable, digital signage, and MPEG encoding systems, will showcase a variety of solutions designed to increase efficiency and reliability for cable TV operations.
Technology Demonstrations
DTA-RPS Digital-to-Analog Conversion Rack and Power Supply
At the NCTC Winter Educational Conference, Drake will introduce the DTA-RPS, a plug-and-play solution that makes it possible to support analog video outputs in all-digital cable TV networks.
Ideal for hospitals, health clubs, and assisted living centers, the DTA-RPS enables operators to get the most out of legacy systems by facilitating the distribution of a small number of analog programs to customers at an affordable price. Offering support for anywhere between 1 to 60 channels, the DTA-RPS is available as a prebuilt system or as individual components.
EEG-QIP Electronic Enterprise Guide for Hospitality Applications
A key highlight at the NCTC Winter Educational Conference will be Drake's new EEG-QIP electronic enterprise guide with CHIC (Content Hotel Information Carousel) software, which provides MSOs with a reliable, cost-effective solution for producing programming guides for TVs without set-top boxes.
Ideal for hospitality applications, the EEG-QIP with CHIC software solution allows operators to create and deliver a simple programming guide to TVs with clear-QAM tuners or properly mapped DTAs utilizing existing guide data. Through Drake's CHIC software, cable operators can send hotel-guide data to the EEG-QIP over a specific QAM channel on the RF network for each hotel property. Thanks to Drake's Enterprise Guide solution, cable operators can provide a highly requested product to commercial hospitality customers without involving a third party.
Featuring a low total cost of ownership, this new solution opens up new revenue sources for operators and helps strengthen relationships with hotel management.
PEG-NE24-IP Single HD-SDI MPEG Encoder
Drake's PEG-NE24-IP encoder is now shipping. The stand-alone, single HD-SDI input MPEG-2 and H.264 digital encoder is designed to support public, education, and government (PEG) channels carrying local public access, school event, and municipal government programming.
Using the PEG-NE24-IP encoder, operators can efficiently transport SD and HD video and audio signals over existing HFC networks, eliminating the need for expensive dedicated links or bandwidth-hungry analog sub-band solutions. The encoder sends signals from a local origination site back to the headend or hub location, so they can be multiplexed and broadcast, making it ideal for multipoint distribution applications.
EH244 Series Encoder Host Chassis
Drake will also show the EH244 Series encoder host chassis at the NCTC Winter Educational Conference, addressing the cable industry's need for low-cost bandwidth recovery solutions. Featuring a variety of configurable output options, the EH244 is the ideal solution for housing MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/H.264 video encoders.
Compatibility with existing equipment, affordable pricing, and a small footprint ensures that the EH244 chassis can be easily integrated into any infrastructure. From a compact 2RU chassis, the EH244 is capable of hosting up to six encoder modules that can produce six HD streams or 12 SD streams depending on which encoder module is deployed. The internal multiplexer allows users to create custom program multiplexes and output them in RF QAM, ASI, or IP. This enables cable operators to recover up to 80 percent of the bandwidth required for analog content distribution.
With the EH244, operators can choose output options based on specific needs and requirements, lowering capital expenses. All chassis include an RJ-45 Ethernet management port and an ASI data port for low data rate applications such as EAS, as well as DTA set-top box control data to support Drake's All-Digital Bandwidth Recovery Solution. A quad ASI option is available for applications that require ASI for program stream distribution.
Company Overview
Headquartered in Ohio, R.L. Drake is an American cable TV institution that has been designing and building innovative end-to-end communications systems and video engineering components for over 65 years. Drake Digital headends are deployed in demanding locations worldwide. Commercial, government, and MSO customers of all sizes use Drake Digital systems. Drake arms multichannel service providers with the technical solutions they need to effectively compete in the residential, enterprise, and hospitality environments.
IMAGE DOWNLOADS
Photo Link: www.202comms.com/Drake/Drake_DTA_RPS_Rack.jpg
Caption: Drake DTA-RPS Digital-to-Analog Converter Rack and Power Supply
Photo Link: www.202comms.com/Drake/Drake_EEG-QIP_Enterprise_Guide.jpg
Caption: Drake EEG-QIP Electronic Enterprise Guide
Photo Link: www.202comms.com/Drake/Drake_PEGNE24IP.jpg
Caption: New Drake PEG-NE24-IP Encoder
Photo Link: www.202comms.com/Drake/Drake_Encoder_Host.jpg
Caption: Drake EH244 Series Encoder Host Chassis
