For those television owners looking for satellite transmission and digital encoding capabilities for their next big remote, this may be an option. PSSI Global Services provided both capabilities for clients at the recent political conventions.
The company’s most complex job at the RNC involved WETA-TV. PSSI provided frame accurate, multi-channel encoding on both its flyaway satellite and fiber circuits allowing the convention coverage to be produced and switched remotely from WETA’s Washington D.C. facility.
PSSI also built a system at WETA to receive and decode the multiplex while also sending three return paths of audio, video and communication via satellite and fiber back to the crew in Cleveland. The systems supported up to 10 hours of transmission time each day.
PSSI also serviced GOP-TV at Quicken Loans Arena with a 2.4m flyaway uplink system for rapid worldwide deployment of gavel-to-gavel coverage. Both flyaway systems were deployed on the arena roof and were certified for operations on Domsat, Intelsat, Eutelsat, Defense Services Communications Systems and other international satellites. GOP-TV supplemented its coverage with inserts from PSSI uplink trucks in various locations around the U.S.
For Eurovision, PSSI provided a Ku-Band truck for coverage on the final day of the convention.
For the Democratic convention, in addition to the same services for WETA studios, PSSI deployed a second KU-band truck to transmit two separate paths of audio and video via satellite from the Wells Fargo Center. Path one offered gavel-to-gavel live coverage of the political convention. Path two centered on interviews and other content to complement convention coverage. Both feeds were distributed as a webcast.
PSSI GM Matt Scalici called the multi-camera feeds the company provided “unique” and “unprecedented.”
“There is an extraordinary amount of engineering design and support that goes into seamlessly transmitting these two very demanding and historical events.”
