Sky Angel currently delivers over 30 TV and radio channels of Christian and family-friendly programming to homes, churches, youth centers, hospitals and more throughout the 48 contiguous United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The company recently announced plans to expand its service using a broadband Internet protocol, commonly known as IPTV.
Sky Angel rigorously evaluated other noise reduction products and found Algogear to be the best solution to remove digital noise and MPEG artifacts from its program videos while reducing its transport stream bandwidth requirements delivering the high-quality signal processing the company required.
The unique Algolith noise reduction algorithms on-board VNR cards will help remove digital noise, DCT-based or mosquito noise, and block artifacts that result from analog to digital conversion, recording equipment, atmospheric conditions, or data compression.
“We were particularly impressed with the quality of the picture processing from the Algogear product and with the bandwidth reduction results we were able to achieve. With its discrete multi-channel processing capability, we are now able to process all of our television channels at a lower cost per channel than otherwise possible,” said Raymond LaRue, vice president of engineering at Sky Angel.
The VNR-1000-HD and VNR-1000-SD Noise Reduction Cards harness Algolith‘s Noise Reduction suite of technologies to dramatically increase picture quality and reduce bandwidth requirements for delivering content to cable, satellite, terrestrial networks, as well as IPTV delivery platforms. The VNR-1000-SD Quad Video Noise Reduction Card allows for four independent channels to be processed at the same time. This solution gives broadcasters more channel processing density than any other solution available on the market today, significantly reducing their cost per channel.
“Today‘s announcement demonstrates that the Algogear VNR-1000 product has excelled in delivering both a significant removal of both digital noise and compression artifacts, as well as a substantial reduction in bit rate,” said Yvan Ouellet, president and CEO of Algolith Inc. “We are delighted to have been selected by Sky Angel for its video image processing needs.”
Sky Angel will install Algogear VNR-1000-SD cards in several locations, with the majority in its new DBS/IPTV Network Operations Center located in Cleveland, Tennessee. The cards are housed in the award winning 2RU 10-slot openGear® frame and will be used as a video pre-processor to the company‘s DBS and IPTV encoders. The cards are SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) enabled for centralized monitoring, and control will be handled remotely through a custom, Sky Angel-developed monitor and control system. They will also be controlled by the openGear Dashboard Java interface.
About Sky Angel
Sky Angel® is a Christian-owned multi-channel provider of faith-based and family-friendly television and radio programming, delivering the widest variety of Christian-based channels to the television, plus news and family channels. Sky Angel was founded by Robert Johnson Sr. more than 25 years ago to provide a Christ-centered and family-friendly alternative to the standard television fare. Since then, it has grown into a service providing quality television and radio programming to all corners of the contiguous United States. More about Sky Angel is available by visiting www.skyangel.com.
About Algolith
Based in Montréal (Québec, Canada), Algolith is a leading provider of advanced image processing solutions offering a broad range of products designed to meet the exacting needs of the television broadcast industry, cable and satellite providers, the emerging IPTV market, digital TV consumers, post-production houses, and media server manufacturers. Founded in 2003 as a spin off of Miranda Technologies, Algolith develops products based on an exceptional intellectual property portfolio that significantly improves image quality in all formats.
For further information, please contact Esther Hotter, Marketing Communications, esther.hotter@algolith.com, or visit www.algolith.com.
Download an image of the Algogear VNR-1000 card.
To learn more about the VNR-1000, read Algolith‘s VNR White Paper.
# # #
Media Contact:
Esther Hotter
Algolith Inc.
Marketing Communications
514-335-9867 Ext: 3246