Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), the largest television company in Italy, is conducting a thorough renovation of its technical infrastructure to provide full 3G/HD/SDI signal distribution.
At the heart of the work is a large Utah Scientific routing system, which consists of a UTAH-400/XL (loaded 1000x2000) video router integrated with an audio router (2000x2000).
The state-owned public service broadcaster operates three main television services and additional thematic channels as well as radio stations, WebTV and satellite channels. Among Italian viewers, RAI's estimated audience share is more than 45 percent.
For the installation, Utah Scientific and RAI engineers cooperated to devise a new approach for managing audio and video in a large environment. The system enables global routing control and full redundancy between RAI's two facilities, which are located in Saxa Rubra and Via Teulada, Rome.
The UTAH-400/XL router offers a 1056x1056 matrix in a single equipment rack using industry-standard BNC connectors. It is readily scalable using a single family of matrix building blocks. The digital routers include redundant power supplies and signal format flexibility, including the ability to handle 3Gb/s progressive-scan HD signal formats.