| Type | Privately-owned subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Unterföhring, Germany |
| Key people | Wilfried Urner (CEO) |
| Products | Satellite and broadcasting services |
| Website | www.aps.de |
ASTRA Platform Services GmbH (APS) is a subsidiary company of SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg (owner and operator of the Astra satellites. From its headquarters in Unterföhring near Munich, Germany, APS operates a broadcasting centre, providing a wide range of services, including content management, playout, encryption, multiplexing, satellite uplinks and other digital TV media broadcast services for the broadcast industry.
APS distributes about 290 TV channels (including 37 in HD), 42 radio channels, and 59 data services[1].
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APS was founded in 1996 by Kirch, a German media company. The German Pay TV provider, Premiere (now (Sky Deutschland) was part of the Kirch group. APS provided and continues to provide Premiere (Sky Deutschland), as well as other private and public German broadcasters, playout, multiplexing, encryption satellite uplinks and other media broadcast services. In June 2004, SES announced that it had bought the controlling interest in APS, at the time called DPC (Digital Playout Centre GmbH), from Premiere with the intention of launching an "open" pay-TV platform for Germany using Premiere-compatible digital set top boxes.[2]
In December 2004, a requirement for regulatory approval from the German Federal Cartels Office (Bundeskartellamt) meant that the deal was changed to 100% of DPC, to give SES sole ownership.[3] DPC was later renamed to ASTRA Platform Services GmbH (APS).
The main services provided to broadcasters by APS are Content Management, Playout, Encryption, Distribution and Interactive services. APS customers include Sky Deutschland and ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany, Top TV in South Africa, channels such as Home Shopping Europe, DSF, Tele 5, 9Live, and DMAX, and most German HDTV channels, including those from Discovery, and Anixe.
APS's content management encompasses digitization of tape-based content, format conversion of video files, quality control, tape storage (now being superseded by digital storage), and a growing digital archive service with integrated digital asset management systems.[1] APS uses the DIVArchive digital archiving system from Front Porch Digital with (as of mid 2009), over 1 PB capacity storing tens of thousands of hours of content. New material is added at the rate of about 1000-2000 hours per month. Although APS still provides videotape storage, this has reduced by more than half since digital archiving was introduced.[4]
APS undertakes the preparation and playout of content from tape or digital files according to the customer's supplied schedule. APS provides customers with visual quality control, the incorporation of on-screen branding and graphics (in 2D or 3D), EPG data and expandable services that range from automatic small channel start-up systems to high-end systems with full-time monitoring and support.
Where needed, interactive services can also be provided to broadcasters, including HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV). APS also designs and develops broadcasters’ web pages. APS has developed the Blucom interactive TV-service that combines broadcasting and mobile technologies to offer services such as programme announcements, weather, lottery and sports results, and further programme information. Bluecom enables interaction such as voting, downloads, chats, and advertising. It also gives mobile phones the ability to stream live TV broadcasts. Blucom synchronizes TV content with the additional information in real-time. Content is sent to a set-top box via satellite, then to a mobile phone via Bluetooth, or directly to the mobile phone via UMTS/GPRS. The return channel operates from the viewer’s mobile via SMS or UMTS/GPRS.
For pay-TV broadcasts, APS provides channel encryption for subscription and pay-per-view protection with Conax, Cryptoworks, Irdeto, Nagravision, and NDS conditional access systems using DVB simulcrypt operation for broadcasts using multiple conditional access systems in parallel, this being a common practice in "free-to-air"(FTA) satellite TV broadcast markets such as Germany. APS also provides Microsoft or Flash digital rights management for Internet streamed channels.
Although the majority of APS broadcasting traffic is digital television channels in SD or HD uplinked to the Astra satellites, APS can also distribute programming to mobiles as on-demand content, and as live or on-demand video over the Internet using Windows Media Player, Quicktime or Flash.
In April 2011, APS opened a new playout centre at its headquarters in Unterföhring to handle expansion of the company, and its client list. The new network operations centre is in a purpose-built new building with the latest technologies including air conditioning based on groundwater cooling, fully redundant power distribution system, and LED screens and LED room lighting in the master control room to minimise heat generation. The old premises are being retained as back-up facilities and the new centre is expected to cope with growth for the next five years.[5]