Topix Streams Live Transmissions Of Berlinale Film Festival Using Tvblob Technology

(12 feb 2009) - TVBLOB, a software and service development company, announced that TOPIX, the Torino Piemonte Internet eXchange, choose the TVBLOB platform to facilitate live daily streaming of the 59th annual International Film Festival of Berlin (“Berlinale”) over best effort public Internet. Using TVBLOB’s Internet set-top boxes (“BLOBbox”), TOPIX completed the first day of successful transmissions and will continue with live daily events with commentary in Italian via Web, FM Radio and Digital Terrestrial Television.
Anyone with digital terrestrial television receiver, radio, and/or a PC or Mobile phone (i.e., Web access) can freely access the transmissions. The events are airing daily 11-14 February 2009, through Saturday, and will be available at:

• 18:30-19:30 - FM radio: Radio Flash 97.6
• 18:30-19:30 - Web: www.wipietv.eu
• 19:30-21:00 - Digital Terrestrial TV: QuartaRete TV

With 19,000 industry participants from 120 countries, 4,000 accredited journalists and more than 200,000 screening tickets sold, the Berlinale is one of the world’s leading film festivals and most reputable media events held in Germany.
Using BLOBboxes and TVBLOB integrated backend services, TOPIX is streaming events in real-time over ‘best effort public Internet without the need for dedicated satellite links or radio bridges. Using standard video cameras and television monitors, TOPIX is using a standard Colt Internet connection with 3Mbps in upload bandwidth to achieve high quality video streaming with live interaction – without buffering or pixelation (note: minimum recommended is 1Mbps upload; BLOBbox scales up to 4Mbps; and the TVBLOB platform supports up to 15Mbps – superior to broadcast quality).
Thanks to years of experimentation and investment, the TVBLOB platform is able to compensate for variations in Internet streaming and achieve high television quality using standard equipment such as analogue or digital video cameras and microphones at transmission points. TOPIX will receive the live festival streams and rebroadcast them using their existing computer broadcasting equipment.