Dawnbreaker Communications Expands with Adtec Digital

When Dawnbreaker Communications was looking to expand their SNG truck to meet growing customer demand and to begin their transition to MPEG4 capability, they turned to Adtec Digital and the EN-81 multi-CODEC MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 AVC/H.264 high definition encoder.

“I originally heard about Adtec through other colleagues in the Satellite News-gathering field,” said Gil Miller-Muro, president and owner of Dawnbreaker Communications, “and became more familiar with then after attending HD World in NYC, Satellite EXPO in D.C., and NAB in Las Vegas.  We were looking to provide a third HD/SD MPEG2 transmit path on our SNG truck, and the EN-81 fits our objectives.  The current plan is to use the EN-81 for occasional news-gathering, multi-camera productions, and sports backhauls.”

Adtec’s team of engineers worked to offer Gil the ability to subtract or add latency in millisecond steps, as required, to the EN-81 thus allowing it to transmit synchronously with other multiple single channels per carrier (SCPC) services.

“We had what Gil needed,” says Kevin Ancelin, SVP of sales for Adtec Digital, “but we soon learned that it was going to require a user definable millisecond latency trim to tune our encoder to match the latency of his legacy MPEG2 DSNG platform.”

Adtec’s innovative approach facilitates synchronous cross brand multichannel service transmission through basic multi-carrier SCPC transmissions.

“The recent addition of the encoder latency trim is probably the most valuable feature of the EN-81 for my application,” says Miller-Muro. “The ability to match the latency of the EN-81 to any other DSNG encoder on the market is vital in our satellite news-gathering business.

“I continue to be impressed with the simplicity and functionality of the EN-81,” he adds. “The fact that I can get both MPEG2 and MPEG4, up to 16 channels of audio and redundant power supplies all into a one rack unit box really made the EN-81 a logical choice.  The unique web GUI is simple to navigate around and works flawlessly on IE, Safari, and Mozilla.  This flexibility, across multiple web browsers, set the EN-81 apart from many other DSNG encoders currently on the market.”

Miller-Muro agrees that Adtec continues to be the value leader in both products and service.

“In addition to being a great product, my decision to go with the EN-81 had a lot to do with the people at Adtec,” he says. “In my experience, Adtec has set the bar very high when it comes to outstanding customer service.  Every question or concern that I have raised with the EN-81 has been addressed appropriately and quickly.  Given this level of customer service, it would be foolish for us to not establish a good relationship with Adtec.”