Blonder Tongue Ships Second Generation SD Encoders
Blonder Tongue Laboratories has shipped the first unit of its second-generation standard-definition encoder – the SD10E-QAM. The encoder allows service providers to add several hundreds of digital programs to their existing CATV networks without costly upgrades otherwise necessary to increase the bandwidth of the distribution plant. The SD10E-QAM is ideally suited for cable operators and providing service in commercial facilities such as hotels, schools/universities, sport/entertainment arenas, corporation headquarters, airports, and cruise ships.
Following the successful deployments of the company’s first-generation SD encoder (the SD4E-ASI), the SD10E-QAM was announced first in March 2010 and demonstrated live at NAB show in April.
The SD10E-QAM accepts up to ten (10) inputs in digital SD-SDI or analog audio/video formats. The encoder digitizes and MPEG-2 encodes each input into a standard-definition stream (SD-480i), and then multiplexes the resulting ten (10) streams into one (1) output in QAM format in the 5.75-864 MHz range (CATV sub-band channels T7-T14 and standard channels 2-135). Any combination of input multiplexing is allowed, for example, 10xSD-SDI or 6xSD-SDI+4xAV.