Ikusi continues innovating to improve and facilitate installer’s regular tasks. The latest example, the new Flashd, the only UHF antenna with automatic fastening system and instant opening.

New Flashd, like the rest of the Flashd range, is characterised by its quick assembly, in just 3 seconds. But it also provides new and important features. The most important one is the first auto-matic fastening system on the market. A fastening system developed and patented by Ikusi, which allows the antenna to be fixed to the pole with just one hand, protecting the installer from risk of fall-ing and unnecessary dangers. In short, a robust

attachment valid for any pole diameter, which makes the installation quicker, easier and, above all, safer.

The fast assembly, together with the easy installation, mean that it takes just two minutes from when you take out the antenna from the packaging until it is fully positioned and secured.

TELEVISION MAGAZINEJANUARY 2012Nº 17

New Flashd, the only antenna on the market with automatic fastening system that can be installed with one hand

“For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece”

Interview with Thanassis Kyriakopoulos,Ikusi’s commercial agent in Greece

Ikusi has developed and patented the first automatic attachment system on the marketNew Flashd can be fully installed in just 2 minutes

Discover our new products in http://www.youtube.com/IkusiTV

Interview withCleopatra Christopoulos

A guidance service for the Atlantica Sensatory Resort hotel TV network

FLASHD array, overcoming the problemsof Greek orography

Interview withThanassis Kyriakopoulos

Ikusi...I have a question

Digital Security:A New Challengefor the Installer

Ikusi Field Meters:A great many advantages

MAC HOME,digital home modulator

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Christopoulos Panagiotis & Cleopatra is the new generation in Christopoulos Bros Company.We met Cleopatra and we have the opportunity for some questions:

Your company is based in Patra city, which is in the middle of last period activity re-garding analogue switch off in Greece. So tell us how you see the situation and the op-portunities in your area. Patra is the 3rd bigger city in Greece and our company has a long history selling electronics and providing support in our area. Last years, I and my brother started extending our busi-ness to cover the whole area of West Greece in our activity. The results are very good until now and the last month analogue switch off in Akarnanika area really explodes our busi-ness. Next month will be analogue switch off

in our city Patra and later we will have more analogue switch

offs at cities Kalamata, Tripoli, Ioannina, etc.

All of them will be within 2012, so we are preparing to be

ready, so to cover the needs of all this area in-stallers. Which are the most popular Ikusi products during Akarnanika switch off and which you believe that will be in the next period?FLASHD series antennas (all models), SBA se-ries amplifiers (especially the new SBA-202) and the new HD IKUSI STB’s were the most sold products last period. We had high num-bers also in our turnover selling professional products like THF, TGT and MAC to projects in city hotels.

What you expect to sell more during next months – what products will be in high de-mand for 2012?

Definitely ClassA Ikusi products for two rea-sons: in West Greece and especially in islands like Corfu, Ithaca, Kefallinia, Zakynthos, etc. there is a big number of vacation hotels near the sea which are not operating during winder. All this hotels will open during April or May and will need to update their HeadEnds so to have the right TV signal in all rooms. As the most of those hotels still have analogue or MPEG2 TV

sets, we expect to sell a huge number of THF and MAC. For the hotels that have replaced their TV sets with new MPEG4 models we will sell MTI, TPC and TGT.

On the other hand, West Greece has a very specific geographical terrain with many is-lands and high mountains, which means that there are in operation more than one thousand analogue re-emitters, so to cover all villages. After the completion of analogue switch off all these villages have to be covered with DVB-T Gap Fillers and we are experts in this field. So I am confident that for the next years we will sell high numbers of QRA, TPC, TGT, MTI, HRA etc.

What do you think about economic crisis and how is it affecting your business? I hope that analogue switch off will help in this direction and keep us active. Most of all I be-lieve that hotels market and Gap Fillers will keep us alive in this really difficult period.

“Hotels market and Gap Fillers will keep us alive in this really difficult period”

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Interview with Cleopatra Christopoulos

“Last 3 years have been very difficult for the

Greek market and every year seems to be worst than the previous. We are lucky to be active in a market that always offer some-

thing new, so in our company haven’t seen yet all effects of the general

economic crisis”.

As he has a long experience with hotels projects in Crete, we asked him for a presentation of a typical big and extended Cretan hotel.

Atlantica Sensatory Resort in Analypsi (Crete) is one of these hotels with 410 rooms and suites, including in total 750 analogue TV sets and outlets.

This hotel asked us for a guidance service for the hotel TV network.

Their demand included 5 analogue terrestrial channels, 32 digital satellite channels (15 of them encoded) and 11 info channels.

All these channels should be in a CATV net-work for all these 750 TV outlets.

This customer demand satisfied with Ikusi ClassA products installed in two 42 Unit rack’s in control room.

Basic units Used:

1. 5 x TPC-010 analogue channel processors for terrestrial analogue Channels

2. 15 x SRC-011 Digital Receiver for VSB recep-tion of encrypted Sat-TV programs

3. 17 x SRF-011 Digital Receiver Free to Air for free to air satellite channels

4. 11 x MCP-411 Modulator used for info channels5. 8 x SMR-600 rack frames for the installation6. 8 x CFP-700 for the power supply of the units.7. 2 x AMX-400 four input combiner to 24 Channels 8. 2 x HPA-125 Amplifier Module

In additional to the above, for this hotel networks used a high number of Ikusi line amplifiers, distri-bution elements, outlets and coaxial cable.

This year DVB-T comes to Crete, so the Atlantica Sensatory Resort needed to have on it’s analogue TV sets the digital terrestrial channels.

This demand can be easily solved by replacing the TPC-010 units with THF-011 units without any oth-er changes to the hotel network and distribution. Keeping the terrestrial channels in the same fre-quency so the TV’s should not be re-programmed.

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Due to specific geographical terrain in Greece with many islands and high mountains, there are still some areas of small villages with very low level ana-logue TV signal with poor quality and many echoes.

The citizens of these areas are waiting the digital signal to solve all these problems, so to have for fist time excellent quality picture in their TV.

The first batch of digital transmitters started to op-erate in very high mountains, with an efficient power of many KW, covering main Greek cities, but due to the easy reception of the digital signals it is possible to receive them in long distance – even hundreds of Km far away.

That was very good for the citizens of areas with weak analogue reception, so many of them tried to receive these signals coming from long distance.In many cases the demand was not just for citizens, but for hotels or re-emitters in these far away areas, feeding their HeadEnds.

As we know when we have to receive signals from far away transmitters, many problems may occur – the signal is not always in the same level, especially when it is travelling over the sea.

The Greek territory has a huge number of analogue re-emitters to cover isolated village, so an additional

problem is that usually on the same frequency for some of the digital streams, coexist some neigh-bour area analogue transmission received in higher level than the digital stream.

So there is a demand in Greece to go in the edge of the art of reception and in the same time to eliminate the interference of two channels in the same frequency.

For these reasons we study this case and we found that we can have very good results com-bining two or four FLASHD antennas using EAS-102 special couplers and high quality mast head amplifier like SBA-120 (low noise, high amplifica-tion and high output lever).

The secret is to install two antennas array in a such horizontal distance that the unwanted chan-nel to arrive on antennas with a delay of half wave length (180o), so to neutralize the unwanted chan-nel on the combiner. In the same time this two antennas combination increase the level (and the quality) of the desirable digital signal by almost 3 db, making the horizontal diagram of the system more narrow than one only antenna.

In the case of four antennas array we have even more amplification by the antenna array: almost 6 db – that means four FLASHD array gain is ~

23,5 db clear antenna amplification without any noise insertion and much more narrow diagrams in both horizontal and vertical levels, minimizing any interference from other directions.

In the picture you can see such application with 4 x FLASHD antennas, 3 x EAS-102 special coupler and 1 x SBA-120. In this special case the digital streams power with only one antenna was in the limited level of 25-30 dbμV and the unwanted analogue interference in one of the frequencies (channel 48) was more than 45 dbμV. The angle between the two transmitters was exactly 12,5o, so we constructed a metal base to install the antennas in a distance of 99 cm. In this way we decreased the level of the analogue signal by 40 db, eliminating the interference with the digital channel.

In this particular application we had many reflec-tions on the sea, so we installed a second level of two more FLASHD horizontal array reducing the vertical angle and the reception of these reflec-tions.

The result was excelled and stable picture in all digital streams. Even in channel 48 for which the initial MER was below 8 db, with this four anten-nas array, new MER becomes 30 db and VBER becomes 6 -6.

A guidance service for theAtlantica Sensatory Resorthotel TV network

Flashd array, overcoming the problems of Greek orography

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Installer: MSS Electronics Ltd. (Makatounakis)Official distributor for Ikusi products in Crete island.

How important is the penetration of Ikusi’s products in Greece?

For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece.In recent years, particularly after the presentation of the amazing FLASHD antenna, the mini headEnds ONE se-ries, the new NBS series amplifier and the DVB-T modulators MAC series, has dominated at all levels of the Greek market by providing excellent products at very reasonable price.The secret lies in creating a distribution network of about 10 se-lected and exceptional distributors in key regions of the country, who sell products with the same price resulting from a low but reasonable markup.

There is also the continued promotion and sup-port of products from Ikusi and there have been more than 80 seminars for installers - seminars with 50, 100, 200, even 365 participants in some of them.

Since 2005 there has been created an install-ers area within ikusi.gr site, offering to installers technical articles and advises, tools, software, price lists, and many more. Today this members.ikusi.gr area has 1.750 registered members. All these installers are being informed in a regular basis about new Ikusi products, new technolo-gies, commercial campaigns, offers, seminars and any other Ikusi activity.This whole policy and action have resulted in the installers to trust the products and expertise of Ikusi in any simple or complicated project.

His first contact with Ikusi products was in the mid 80’s. He met and appreciated many of the simple line products (antennas, amplifiers, ma-terials distribution, etc.), but he was really thrilled with the professional equipment (converters, amplifiers with AGC, line amplifiers, etc.).It was the first time in his long career, where he met professional products with excellent standards and really reasonable and affordable prices, so that became a strong relationship with Ikusi products.

Much later, in 1996, he dealt exclusively with the support and promotion of the company’s’ products in Greece and Cyprus, with empha-sis on professional equipment. The results of this cooperation were impressive and from the first years of 00’s Ikusi was the leader in sales of professional products in the area of his re-sponsibility.

A milestone on this path was the construction and certification of all the Olympic projects in Athens for the Olympic Games of 2004 (33 ven-ues, athletes’ Olympic village, 13 media villages and 15 more CATV networks).Important was also the constructions of a very large number of Hotels and Gap Fillers during the past 2 year’s partial analogue switch off in Greece.

In that moment it’s compulsory to speak about the economic crisis. From your lons experience point of view, how is the crisis affecting the telecommunications market?

It really is a very important consideration at this time. The european and the global economic crisis made its appearance a little earlier in Greece than in other countries of the European Union because of a number of peculiarities of the Greek economy.

On the other hand, this enables us to see first the events that will soon appear in other markets.

Overall, the Greek market dropped down during the last 3 years but it is certain that the telecom-munications market was less affected than oth-er sectors of the economy. In general, electron-ics and telecommunications are based in new developments embedded in new technologies, which are often not eligible but essential for society and enterprises, so it is natural that the activity of this market remains active compared with other markets.

At this period also, has started gradually the an-alogue TV switch off, so the impact of the eco-nomic crisis in our market is not as pronounced as in other sectors of the Greek economy.

Which do you think will be the main busi-ness lines capable of stimulating the market in the short term?

I am confident that for the next 2-3 years the main object of our market will revolve around the completion of the analogue TV switch off.

Apart from sales of the STBs and, generally, the standard equipment of antennas and SMATV, Greece is a country of exceptional beauty and hence highly developed tourism.

It has more than 10,000 hotels, which re-quire some adjustments in their headEnds, in order to provide image on television of the rooms after the switch off.Several of these ho-tels still have analogue televisions, while a large number of hotels that renewed their equipment between 2004 and 2009 have MPEG2 TVs. The system that DIGEA network provider adopted since the summer of 2009 is MPEG4, so all these MPEG2 TV sets in those hotels are not able to work with MPEG4 without any modifica-tion in the hotel headEnds.This means that the THF-011 (ClassA MPEG4 professional receiver with analogue VSB modulator) and MAC-401 (MPEG2 DVB-T modulator) are some of the products that are very useful and popular in the Greek hotels market.

For the needs of hotels that have MPEG4 TV sets, we have many more ClassA solutions (MTI transmodulators, TGT regenerators, TPC digital converters etc), which cover everything a hotel might need for terrestrial & satellite programs, plus any internal hotel & info channels.

Besides the hotel market, important to Ikusi is the gap fillers market too. Because of the moun-tains and the many islands, Greece has a very specific geographical terrain, which means that the completion of digital coverage will take about 2,000 points of emission. The company offers solutions for every gap filler type by sim-ple digital conversion (TPC) or digital signal re-generation (TGT), and also has the QRA series (Echo Cancellers) that allows the retransmission of a stream in the same channel as the input signal.

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“For over a decade Ikusi has been steadily the first by far, from all of its competitors in sales of professional products in Greece”

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Interview with Thanassis Kyriakopoulos, Ikusi´s commercial agent in Greece

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In my area town we still have only ana-logue reception, but there is a very weak reception of far away digital signals in an-other direction. Can I combine somehow the strong local analogue signals with the weak digital signals?

When we try combine reception from two antennas in different directions, the most common problem is the echoes reception form the opposite direction.This problem is worst when we have to com-bine strong signals from the 1st antenna with weak signals from the second antenna. In this case we have to amplify more the weak signals, so in the same time we amplify more the echoes of the strong signals coming from the first direction.ONE series mini HeadEnds is the ideal solu-tion for this case.Filtering the signals with 10 groups of chan-nels, you can amplify much more the weak digital signals from the second antenna, re-jecting in the same time the echoes of the analogue signals from the first direction.In this way we can have in the ONE series mini HeadEnds output, the whole spectrum including the initial strong analogue signals and the initially weak digital signals, equal-ized n the same level and without the ana-logue signal echoes.

One of my clients has a hotel with 264 rooms in many small buildings, with brand new TV sets including MPEG4 tun-er in all rooms. Last month we had ana-logue switch off in my area, so I installed TGT regenerators in this hotel and all ter-

restrial channels are working perfectly. All satellite channels installed in the ear-lier years with SRF modules in this hotel network, are still analogue. The problem is that the customers of this hotel, can’t switch easily from digital channels to the analogue channels, so there are many calls to the reception complaining about that and asking for support. What can I do to solve that?

In the most of the existing TV sets in the mar-ket, it is really difficult to switch from digital reception to analogue reception. It is worst when we are referring to a hotel visitor, as he isn’t oblige to know how to combine buttons in the TV control. In this case the hotel has to provide a simple solution to his customers to change the channels by just pushing the (+) and (-) buttons.That means it is necessary to have all chan-nels in a hotel network in the same format: all analogue or all digital.In the new era of digital TV it is better to have all channels in digital DVB-T format, so to have the best possible quality, to have even High Definition programs if the TV sets sup-port that, but most of all to be easy to be used by any hotel customer.Ikusi’s MTI, STC, STF modules (DVB-S to DVB-T transmodulators) is the ideal solu-tion to be used in such cases, so to have all terrestrial and satellite channels in the same DVB-T format within a hotel network.

I have a 5 stars hotel with MPEG2 32” TV sets in all rooms which I bought 3 years ago. In few months in my hotel area will

be analogue switch off, but the digital ter-restrial channels will be in MPEG4 format. What I have to do in order to provide good quality picture in all rooms of my hotel?

You have 3 options:a. If your hotel has a small number of rooms – lets say below 10 rooms – it is better to replace TV sets with new models including MPEG4 tuner.b. If you have a hotel with big number of rooms and many installed satellite channels distributed in analogue format, it is better to convert you upcoming terrestrial MPEG4 DVB-T channels to analogue channels as you did with your installed satellite channels.THF-011 digital MPEG4 receiver and VSB modulator is the ide al solution for you, especially if your hotel has a big number of rooms in many small buildings.If you hotel is just in one building and has a medium number of rooms (below 30), you can use a combination of MCP-801 double VSB modulators, plus STB’s. It is not the best solution as it is not exactly what we call a professional solution, but it has lower cost and with some compromise it is working. c. If your hotel hasn’t a big number of in-stalled satellite channels distributed in ana-logue format, it is better to convert you up-coming terrestrial MPEG4 DVB-T channels to MPEG2 channels.You can do that using MAC-201 or MAC-401 in combination with some STB’s.In the case you need more satellite channels; you can use MTI transmodulators, so to have satellite content in DVB-T format also.

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Anyone who works in television distribution will have come into contact at some point with the world of digital security. Particularly those who work with pay TV platforms, who on a daily ba-sis have to tackle the complications imposed by security (problems with rights acquisition, smartcard replacement campaigns, users that use piracy and blame the installer when it fails, etc.).

With the arrival of digital television, and above all high definition, the security requirements are becoming even more demanding. Places already exist, such as the Nordic countries, where in order to broadcast digital television in communities or private networks it is obligato-rily to encode all the broadcasts. In other coun-tries the regulations are not so demanding, or are still evolving, but the following tendencies can be clearly seen:

• To require all high definition content from pay platforms to be encoded until it reaches the television.

• To require protected content to have in-visible marks (watermarking) that allow its source to be identified in the event it is fil-tered to unauthorised distribution channels (e.g. the internet).

Digital Security:A New Challenge for the Installer

These restrictions represent an important technological challenge for the professional television installer and their solution providers, as they will find themselves carrying out instal-lations of a level of complexity that was previ-ously reserved for large cable networks.

Below we describe the new security technolo-gies that we will need more and more frequent-ly in collective television installations.

Coded in Header

The conditional access systems are divided into those designed for broadcast environ-ments (E.g. Satellite or Terrestrial Digital TV) and those designed for IP environments (E.g. IPTV Networks, DOCSIS, or WebTV). The main difference between the two is the availability of a return channel that allows the integrity of the security system to be confirmed.

These systems, which are common in large TV distributions, were previously unheard of in ho-tels and neighbourhoods. Digitalisation and the growing availability of HD content make it nec-essary for the introduction of coding systems that keep the video protected until it reaches the TV screen. Economic systems already exist for broadcasting networks, such as Vsecure by

Philips, which integrates the decoding in the actual television (thus avoiding the installation of a decoder).

Watermarking Systems

As a complement to the installation of a cod-ing system, content providers can also require the implementation of watermarking systems that allow traceability in the event that content is distributed illegally. These watermarks must be undetectable by the viewer, but sufficiently robust to survive the most typical video editing operations, such as:

• Recording via digital camera.• Transcoding to reduce the size of the re-

cording. • Change in video format (e.g. from MPEG to

Windows Media video)

David Domínguez, head of Projectsat Ikusi

“Places already exist, such as the Nordic countries, where in order to broadcast digital television in communities or private networks it is obligatorily to encode all the broadcasts.”

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Ikusi continues to develop solutions to meet the specific needs of single family homes, on this occasion, by launching onto the market the new AV-COFDM Mac Home modulator model.

Mac Home is a digital apartment modulator which, like the rest of the Ikusi Mac range, can send to the television in DTT format the video and audio signals from a satellite receiver, a closed-circuit camera, an entry-phone or any other video-audio source.

Mac Home has been specially designed to at-tend to video-audio signal distribution needs in single family homes. The Mac Home incor-porates additional video-audio channels to the DTT channels. Making it easier to select the contents you want to watch from the TV’s re-mote control.

Using the TV’s remote control you can select the contents you want to watch. As well as being

Ikusi Field Meters:Many great advantages

Mac Home, stand alone modulator for home installations

easy to use, it is also of high quality, and all of this at a very competitive price.

Mac Home also has a pleasing aesthetical de-sign to ensure it blends in well with the decora-tion in the home.

Like the rest of the range, Mac Home is an au-tonomous modulator, due to its individual power supply, and it can also be programmed without the need for external control, which results in a simple configuration.

In addition, MAC modulators offer a quality broadcast, which enables images to be distrib-uted with an excellent signal; they have a simple LCD interface, updatable software and a re-placeable power supply.

A range of characteristics -easy installation, quality modulation and image, autonomy and spectral purity- which make them attractive for all small installations.

Easy installation, quality modulation and image and autonomy are the main characteristics of Mac Home

In the same way, Ikusi meters offer the option of real time “echo measuring”, whilst others take seconds to recognise and display the signal on the screen. This quality is highly regarded by the installer, who carries out the measuring and

adjustment tasks, often at the top of a tower or an antenna in an uncomfortable position in which any time savings are appreciated. Ikusi’s meters display all the measurements on one screen, including the image of everything that is being measured.

Other options highly rated by our customers include the bar spectrum screen that allows a

The main advantage of Ikusi’s DSA field strength meters is the spectrum representation speed, which is the fastest and most stable on the market. Other devices with similar sampling speeds display a difference in reading from one instant to the next, differences of 3-4 dB, com-pared to less than 0.5 dB with our devices.

header to be equalised with just one screen, as well as the memorising of the spectrum where the saved spectrum is overlapped with the real-time spectrum.

On the other hand, we can add all Ikusi meters that have such user-friend-ly software that you barely need to read the manual, unless you need it for very specific or uncom-mon tasks.

“The main advantage of Ikusi’s DSAfield strength meters is thespectrum representation speed”

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