Thomson Broadcast

Last updated
Thomson Broadcast
TypePrivate
IndustryBroadcasting, media
Headquarters
Colombes
,
France
ProductsTelevision and radio transmission systems, microwave links, head-ends, UHF television transmitters, medium-wave radio transmitters, passive components, cooling systems, local and remote network management systems
Number of employees
80 (approx)
Subsidiaries GatesAir
Website thomsonbroadcast.tv

Thomson Broadcast is a French electronics manufacturer which designs, produces, deploys and services television and medium-wave radio transmission systems.

Contents

History

Thomson Broadcast is a legacy of the former Thomson Group, which first transmitted television programs on July 10, 1937 from the Eiffel Tower. [1] Thomson Group led to the creation of two companies in 1995: Thomson-CSF, specializing in defense and Thomson Multimedia (TMM), specializing in electronic consumer goods. Thomson Multimedia acquired the DVD manufacturer Technicolor and Grass Valley, a company focusing on cameras and video technology, in 2000 and 2001. [2] This reinforced a strategy to produce and sell professional equipment (instead of consumer goods) which was fully implemented in 2005, when Thomson acquired Thales Broadcast & Multimedia. [3]

From 2000 to 2008, Thomson/Thales Broadcast & Multimedia reinforced its position in transmission deployment. In 2000, Thales Multimedia Multimedia introduced two one-megawatt longwave transmitters in Roumoules, France, to broadcast Radio Monte Carlo from Great Britain to North Africa. [4] In 2008, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) gave a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in technical or engineering development in the "Monitoring for compliance standards for ATSC & DVB transport streams" category to Thomson, Pixelmetrix, Tektronix and Rohde & Schwarz. [5] That year, All India Radio ordered a one-megawatt S7HP medium-wave transmitter from Thomson. [6] In 2009, Thomson experienced serious financial difficulty. [7] The following year, Thomson Grass Valley announced the sale of its radio and television transmission activities to a German private equity firm [8] and was renamed Technicolor.

The Arelis Group acquired Thomson Broadcast's transmission portfolio, including its radio and television transmitter lines, in December 2012. [9] Based on the Arelis Group's manufacturing capability, Thomson Broadcast received a contract to deploy next stage transmission DTT (digital terrestrial television) transmitters to Israel. [10] By 2013, its asset turnover was said to have increased by 20 percent; [11] this growth led to a global increase of 440 percent from 2012 to 2015. The Cape Verde digital transition was achieved with a Thomson Broadcast transmission turnkey system in 2015, [12] and the company competed in other African projects against the Chinese media company StarTimes. [13] Proposing DTT system and medium-wave radio transmission systems around the world, Thomson Broadcast is involved in Digital Video Broadcasting and Digital Radio Mondiale.

In August 2018, Thomson Broadcast was acquired by Groupe Sipromad, and is currently managed as part of the Technology Business Unit under the entity Phenixya. [14]

In April 2022, Thomson Broadcast began the process of acquiring GatesAir. [15] The acquisition was closed in August 2022. [16]

Products

Products manufactured by Thomson Broadcast include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital television</span> Television transmission using digital encoding

Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advancement and represented the first significant evolution in television technology since color television in the 1950s. Modern digital television is transmitted in high-definition television (HDTV) with greater resolution than analog TV. It typically uses a widescreen aspect ratio in contrast to the narrower format (4:3) of analog TV. It makes more economical use of scarce radio spectrum space; it can transmit up to seven channels in the same bandwidth as a single analog channel, and provides many new features that analog television cannot. A transition from analog to digital broadcasting began around 2000. Different digital television broadcasting standards have been adopted in different parts of the world; below are the more widely used standards:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrestrial television</span> Television content transmitted via signals in the air

Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an antenna. The term terrestrial is more common in Europe and Latin America, while in Canada and the United States it is called over-the-air or simply broadcast. This type of TV broadcast is distinguished from newer technologies, such as satellite television, in which the signal is transmitted to the receiver from an overhead satellite; cable television, in which the signal is carried to the receiver through a cable; and Internet Protocol television, in which the signal is received over an Internet stream or on a network utilizing the Internet Protocol. Terrestrial television stations broadcast on television channels with frequencies between about 52 and 600 MHz in the VHF and UHF bands. Since radio waves in these bands travel by line of sight, reception is generally limited by the visual horizon to distances of 64–97 kilometres (40–60 mi), although under better conditions and with tropospheric ducting, signals can sometimes be received hundreds of kilometers distant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Radio Mondiale</span> Digital radio broadcasting standard

Digital Radio Mondiale is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—particularly shortwave—and FM broadcasting. DRM is more spectrally efficient than AM and FM, allowing more stations, at higher quality, into a given amount of bandwidth, using xHE-AAC audio coding format. Various other MPEG-4 codecs and Opus are also compatible, but the standard now specifies xHE-AAC.

Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services.

Thales Group is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' business district, La Défense, and its stock is listed on the Euronext Paris.

Vantiva SA, formerly Technicolor SA, Thomson SARL, Thomson SA, and Thomson Multimedia, is a French multinational corporation that provides creative services and technology products for the communication, media and entertainment industries. Vantiva's headquarters are located in Paris, France. Other main office locations include Norcross (USA), Rennes (France) Edegem (Belgium) Seoul, Beijing (China), Chennai (India), Memphis (USA).

Digital terrestrial television is a technology for terrestrial television where television stations broadcast television content in a digital format. DTTV is a major technological advance over analog television, and has largely replaced analog television broadcast, which had been in common use since the middle of the 20th century. Test broadcasts began in 1998 with the changeover to DTTV, also known as the Analog Switchoff (ASO) or Digital Switchover (DSO), which began in 2006 and is now complete in many countries. The advantages of digital terrestrial television are similar to those obtained by digitizing platforms such as cable TV, satellite, and telecommunications: more efficient use of radio spectrum bandwidth, provision of more television channels than analog, better quality images, and potentially lower operating costs for broadcasters.

Grass Valley is a manufacturer of television production and broadcasting equipment. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it was formed by the March 2014 merger of the original Grass Valley with Miranda Technologies, which were both acquired by American networking company Belden in 2014 and 2012, respectively. In February 2018, owners Belden merged Grass Valley with newly-acquired Snell Advanced Media. On July 2, 2020, Grass Valley announced the completion of its acquisition by private equity firm Black Dragon Capital from Belden Inc.

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Thomson-CSF was a French company that specialized in the development and manufacture of electronics with a heavy focus upon the aerospace and defence sectors of the market.

A broadcast transmitter is an electronic device which radiates radio waves modulated with information content intended to be received by the general public. Examples are a radio broadcasting transmitter which transmits audio (sound) to broadcast radio receivers (radios) owned by the public, or a television transmitter, which transmits moving images (video) to television receivers (televisions). The term often includes the antenna which radiates the radio waves, and the building and facilities associated with the transmitter. A broadcasting station consists of a broadcast transmitter along with the production studio which originates the broadcasts. Broadcast transmitters must be licensed by governments, and are restricted to specific frequencies and power levels. Each transmitter is assigned a unique identifier consisting of a string of letters and numbers called a callsign, which must be used in all broadcasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ALLISS</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">2RN (RTÉ Networks)</span>

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DTMB is the digital TV standard for mobile and fixed devices, developed in the People's Republic of China. It is used there and in both of their special administrative regions, and also in Cambodia, the Comoros, Cuba, East Timor, Laos, Vietnam, and Pakistan. In Pakistan, as part of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor Project, ZTE Corporation will provide Pakistan Television Corporation collaboration across several digital terrestrial television technologies, staff training, and content creation, including partnerships with Chinese multinational companies in multiple areas, such as television sets and set top boxes, as a form of "International Cooperation".

Broadcast Television Systems (BTS) was a joint venture between Robert Bosch GmbH's Fernseh Division and Philips Broadcast in Breda, Netherlands, formed in 1986.

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References

  1. ↑ "Technicolor Sells Off Thomson Video Networks". Streaming Media Magazine. 2011-03-09. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  2. ↑ "Thomson : une histoire mouvementée, de l'électricité à l'image". Les Echos (in French). 2009-07-24. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  3. ↑ "Thomson acquires Thales Broadcast Multimedia" 20 December 2005, http://www.tvtechnology.com/multiformat/0112/thomson-acquires-thales-broadcast-multimedia/252796
  4. ↑ "Émetteur de Roumoules", https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89metteur_de_Roumoules
  5. ↑ “Winners of 59th Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards” January 2008, http://emmyonline.com/tech_59th_recipients
  6. ↑ "All India Radio" MW SPT " Rajkot /AIR -WEST/FS/URDU SINDHI BALUCHI/विदेश सेवा/ GENERAL OVERSEA SERVICE ESD- DELHI". wikimapia.org. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  7. ↑ "L'avenir de Thomson est désormais entre les mains de ses créanciers". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  8. ↑ "Grass Valley sells system integration business to German private equity firm" 7 August 2012, http://blog.devoncroft.com/2012/08/07/more-broadcast-vendor-ma-grass-valley-sells-systems-integration-business-to-german-private-equity-firm/
  9. ↑ "Le groupe Arelis reprend Thomson Broadcast” 20 December 2012, https://businessclubdefrance.com/2012/12/20/derniere-minute-le-groupe-arelis-reprend-thomson-broadcast/
  10. ↑ "Thomson Broadcast wins Israel DTT contract". Digital TV Europe. 2013-07-16. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  11. ↑ "Les excellents résultats 2013 de Thomson Broadcast (Groupe ARELIS) se finalisent avec un déploiement en Afrique". industrie-mag.com (in French). Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  12. ↑ étrangères, Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires. "Relations bilatérales". France Diplomatie - Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères (in French). Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  13. ↑ "Télévision : en Afrique, la bataille de la TNT fait rage – Jeune Afrique". JeuneAfrique.com (in French). Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  14. ↑ Ramjan, Umayrah (2018-08-09). "Group Sipromad takes over Thomson Broadcast". Nextv News. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  15. ↑ "Thomson Broadcast to Acquire GatesAir". TV Technology. 2022-04-24.
  16. ↑ "Thomson Broadcast Closes Purchase Of GatesAir". TV Technology. 2022-08-04.
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