SatcoDX - TELE-satellite International Magazine
SatcoDX - TELE-satellite International Magazine
SatcoDX - TELE-satellite International Magazine
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SNAI’s main office can<br />
be found in Lucca not too<br />
far from Pisa, Italy.<br />
include a 3.8-meter mesh antenna and<br />
a 3.0-meter solid dish. “But that’s all in<br />
the past”, winked Mario, “today there are<br />
other problems to solve.”<br />
His experiences as a DXer, where he<br />
always had to find practical solutions<br />
using the simplest methods, help him<br />
today to solve much more complex signal<br />
processing problems. He gave us an<br />
example, “In our own office system we<br />
need to not only have access to HOTBIRD<br />
but also naturally our own transponder at<br />
16 east.” He acquired a narrow LNB, one<br />
that he could mount at a 3 deg offset,<br />
and fiddled with a single-cable solution<br />
so that only one single cable was needed<br />
to receive both HOTBIRD and the SNAI-<br />
TV transponder at 16 east.<br />
But there are also more complex systems<br />
in the works. “We are in the process<br />
of converting our system to HD.”<br />
Even though the transmissions directly<br />
from the racing venues are still in SD,<br />
Mario came up with his own idea to make<br />
it work: he scales the incoming SD signal<br />
up to HD and can then transmit the programs<br />
in MPEG4 with an 8 MB bandwidth.<br />
It’s easy to see that Mario has <strong>satellite</strong><br />
technology in his blood. He can tell based<br />
on the reception signal what encoder is<br />
being used. “One encoder manufacturer<br />
doesn’t have a complete grasp of their<br />
technology; you can easily see this”,<br />
comments Mario.<br />
We asked him as a professional what<br />
direction he thought that HDTV would<br />
continue to go. For Europe he referred to<br />
the state-run as well as the public channels:<br />
“they have to lead the way; private<br />
channels don’t normally take the initiative.”<br />
A horror to him is the HD programming<br />
from their national PayTV provider Sky:<br />
“They scale everything up. This can be<br />
www.<strong>TELE</strong>-<strong>satellite</strong>.com — 10-11/2008 — <strong>TELE</strong>-<strong>satellite</strong> & Broadband<br />
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