Technology innovator Scientific-Atlanta Europe has announced that Croatian network operator Odašiljaci i Veze (OiV) will upgrade its entire terrestrial distribution network using its equipment. Having recently completed a thorough acceptance test deployment of the equipment, OiV will begin aim at transforming the country’s TV and radio transmission infrastructure with the enhancements to its new network.

A company release states that OiV controls a network of 21 main transmitter sites and approximately 300 transposer sites in Croatia which are used for delivering terrestrial television content to the country’s 1.5 million television households. The company has signed a contract for a complete DVB-compliant digital platform from Scientific-Atlanta, providing TV and radio distribution, studio-to-studio contribution, as well as a full system management solution.

While OiV currently transmits three national channels, one of its key objectives is to include more contribution from regional news providers in its existing national programming, all on the same network. With the advanced Scientific-Atlanta encoders, OiV will be able to insert local news in specific time-slots within national programming for broadcast in six regional networks. The Scientific-Atlanta solution provides cost-effective, near-seamless splicing technology to minimise costs while maximising performance.

OiV's new Scientific-Atlanta platform will also convert the digital transport signals into traditional analogue for terrestrial transmission to the home. As part of the overall system, OiV has bought Scientific-Atlanta’s Rosa network management system to give it complete control of network performance at all times. The network will also have automatic redundancy switching which will help to enable OiV to provide high-quality, reliable service at all times. OiV has stated that its new content delivery network in Croatia will improve the viewer experience and provide additional bandwidth needed to support the growth of television in the country.