The ESPRIT arena in Düsseldorf, Germany, one of Europe's most modern multifunctional arenas for sports events and with a capacity of up to 66,000 fans, is using an in-stadium IPTV network based on products from Teracue to enhance the experience for fans. The stadium completed an HD upgrade in October, complete with HD-ready DVB-TV Gateways from Teracue und and standard Amino set-top boxes.
More than 80 TV screens are positioned throughout the arena, connected to the IP network via standard Amino set-tops boxes, which receive all TV and input signals via this connection. The set-top boxes are linked to the TV displays using HDMI or multicable (FBAS, component or YUV) connections.
To supply satellite signals, Teracue employed six DVB-TV, DVB-to-IP gateways of the DMM-140 series. Currently, a total of 21 TV channels are being fed into the network as IP streams. In the process, an unlimited number of set-top boxes can be fed by one single TV network stream.
Three Teracue ENC series encoders are used for the production of media for the stadium itself. The encoders generate in-house video streams, and these video streams are used to feed specific signals, such as advertising channels, to the TV screens located throughout the stadium. These video streams can be made available on the TV screens to display information, corporate videos and for advertising and promotion purposes before and after events such as concerts or during the half-time break at soccer matches.
The switching of the set-top boxes for selection of the input signals is carried out by the Teracue ElementManager software application, which is used to remotely control the set-top boxes either individually or in groups via the network. The set-top boxes can be switched to specific channels, or video streams, before, during and after events. This allows for the quick, easy and uniform configuration of all TVs at specific times during events.
TV displays in the corporate boxes can also be controlled independently, and channels can be selected for each individual corporate box. Teracue’s ElementManager software can be used to bring all the displays into a predefined starting position at the beginning of an event.