Overseas communications carrier and sole uplinking service provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd is working on providing digital uplinking facilities to encrypted channels from Indian soil. As part of that the company has selected a range of Taridan Scopus Codico platforms which are to be installed in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. The service will initially be available from Chennai's Ambattur uplink site where playout rooms will be provided at a price. It will be extended to the two other cities as and when the facilities are upgraded. No rates have been decided for the Multiple Channel Per Carrier (MCPC) services.

Prior to this, in nine different cities, Scopus had installed digital SCPC (Single Channel Per Carrier) systems that improve signal reach and quality.

The current installation covers the three major metros and Scopus has installed a number of MCPC systems. VSNL is using a Conditional Access System provided by Irdeto. Scopus digital platforms also enable VSNL to provide IP data services over these networks.

"VSNL is a very large part of the changing media landscape in India and now that we are part of their overachieving team, I am convinced that our digital tools will propel them even further," says Arie Vered, Scopus Sales and Marketing Director. "VSNL's selection of Scopus advances our growing interests in Asia and is a major confirmation for Scopus' technology and reputation."

The cornerstones of Scopus' SCPC and MCPC systems are the CODICO E-1100 Professional Encoder and and CODICO IRD 2520 (Integrated Receiver / Decoder). The CODICO RTM-3600 Statistical Multiplexer / Re-multiplexer is behind the MCPC.

The E-1100 Professional Encoder operates at 50 Mbit/ second and support both MPEG-2 4:2:0P@ML and 4:2:2P@ML encoding levels. The E-1100, housed in a single unit rackmounted enclosure, uses an advanced video pre-processor to deliver flexible encoding capabilities and high quality pictures at any given bit rate and with a very low delay. The Encoder operates either at constant bit-rate (CBR) or at variable bit-rate mode (VBR), to support Scopus' statistical multiplexing process.

The RTM-3600 is an MPEG-2 DVB compliant Statistical Multiplexer / Re-multiplexer that provides cost-effective MPEG-2 DVB stream multiplexing and efficient re-multiplexing. It is capable of multiplexing up to 15 MPEG-2 transport streams, re-multiplexing video programs and has a statistical multiplexing mode.

The Scopus systems also include an Network Management system, the NMS-4000.

Scopus has teamed up with MCBS (India) for project implementation and technical support.