The Big Ten Network is using JPEG2000-based HD Gateways from T-VIPS (http://www.t-vips.com/) for the contribution of live sports — including basketball, volleyball and hockey — over IP networks to its headquarters in Chicago. The Big Ten Network is a joint venture between subsidiaries of the Big Ten Conference and Fox Cable Networks.
The Big Ten Network televises more than 350 live events, the vast majority in high definition, as well as studio shows, original programming and classic games and is available to more than 75 million homes in the U.S. and Canada. The Big Ten Conference, the nation's oldest, is comprised of 11 world-class universities in eight states around the Midwest. It members, all NCAA Division I universities, include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin. >
T-VIPS' JPEG2000-based video gateways offer 10-bit video quality, low latency, outstanding error resiliency characteristics, flexibility, ease-of-use and remote monitoring and control.
Because sports coverage contains high-speed motion with rapid scene shifts and lots of camera movement, it maximizes stress on compression schemes. In addition, the high value of sports content means it is more important than ever that consumers see the highest-quality television signal possible and with minimum delay. Sports content is often broadcast on a large number of channels in many geographical regions as well as over mobile TV networks and streamed over the Internet, which requires a source signal that is suitable for editing, format conversion and transcoding.
The T-VIPS range of video gateways, including the TVG450, has been designed to provide the sports industry with solutions that meet all of these requirements and in addition can be easily integrated with all broadcast systems and workflows. The Big Ten Network contract builds on T-VIPS' success in sports, including the delivery of UK Premier League soccer to Scandinavia, the transport of ice hockey programming within Sweden and Finland, and a number of backhaul systems live in the U.S.
