TIA Member Spotlight:
Peter F. Daly, Jr., Currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer at Blonder Tongue Laboratories, Inc. and has been with the company since April 2004. Prior to joining Blonder Tongue, Mr. Daly was co-founder and Senior Vice President of Lamont Digital Systems, Inc. dba Campus TeleVideo and served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer of that company. For 15 years, he focused on the college and university market and has presented at various industry associations meetings. He is a national member of the Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers, where he received that organizations' National Outstanding Achievement Award. Mr. Daly has been involved in the cable television industry for 30 years, mainly as service provider and integrator. He is active in the private cable industry and has extensive experience working with campus administrators on both large and small campuses across the country.
- Please give us a brief history of Blonder Tongue Laboratories, Inc., and tell our readers about your typical clientele.
Founded in 1950, Blonder Tongue Laboratories, Inc. has been an innovative designer and manufacturer of products for the cable television industry. Initially, the focus was to develop technology for niche cable television applications, and this focus gave the company a dominant position in the private cable market. The company has evolved from a manufacturer of electronic equipment for the private cable industry to a principal provider of integrated network solutions and technical services to broadband service providers in several related markets. The company designs, manufactures and supplies a comprehensive line of equipment to deliver video (Analog, Standard Digital, and High Definition Digital), high speed data and voice services over integrated coaxial and fiber optic broadband networks today and over packet based, Internet Protocol networks of the future. The company serves both the franchised and private cable markets and is a provider of integrated network solutions to all of the related video markets, including the multi-dwelling unit (MDU) market, the lodging/hospitality market and the institutional market, which includes hospitals, prisons and schools. The company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware in November 1988 and completed its initial public offering in December 1995.
- Give us an overview of Blonder Tongue Laboratories, Inc. and tell us how you provide the best product designs, systems engineering support, field service and technical service in the industry.
Blonder Tongue is designed to be a full service organization that can provide all the products and technical support required to be a video, voice and data operator. Our company is unique in the fact that we still design and manufacture a majority of our products in New Jersey. This gives us tremendous flexibility in creating products with the features and functions that are actually required in the marketplace. If a customer needs specific changes to a product and has the volume to support the changes, the company will work to change the product for their specific application. Our key customers are vital in the new product design process, and are truly viewed as partners. Technology in the marketplace is changing so rapidly that we have evolved into an organization that listens to the marketplace and partners with our customers to provide the solutions they really need instead of dictating to them how their business should function.
- For the past 25 years, your Technical Solutions Group has been conducting training seminars throughout the United States. How often are these courses given? How does this add value to your current product offerings and who attends these seminars?
Our Technical Solutions Group conducts training sessions across the country every month on a variety of topics. The staff in the Technical Solutions Group are all field engineers that have real world, 'rubber meets the road' experience in designing, constructing and troubleshooting RF systems. Their work can be found in countries all around the world. The most popular course we offer is our two-day, hands-on Broadband Basics course that will instruct technical individuals on the intricacies involved in designing, troubleshooting and provisioning video via RF. The courses that are offered benefit the students because we are experts in RF video. All the training offered draws on the collective experience of a company that is credited as being one of the founders of the cable television industry today. More information on the variety of courses offered can be found on our website at: http://www.blondertongue.com/pages/techServ/ts_train.php
- You have a number of new product offerings. Please tell us about your most recent top three products.
Agile ATSC/QAM Demodulator (AQD) - The ATSC/QAM Demodulator is housed in a 3 RU Module that allows for eight units to be inserted in a chassis with a common power and control unit. The power and control unit features a two line by 16 character liquid crystal display (LCD) to allow interaction with the easy-to-follow user menu functions for simple programming. The entire rack can also be optionally remotely controlled via an RS-232 modem or the Blonder Tongue Remote Configuration Server.The AQD provides the operator with a NTSC composite video via an F connector and audio via left/right RCA connectors. This is designed to function seamlessly with Blonder Tongue analog modulators to allow the delivery of the desired digital signals in any analog channel. The unit supports decoding all 18 ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) standard formats including 8VSB, annex B QAM64 & QAM 256. Video is displayed in 480i (NTSC) in 4:3 or 16:9 formats with closed captioning decoding supported as well.
Internet Protocol Video Encoder (IPME-2) - Internet Protocol. We have all come to know this as the basic protocol or language suite of communicating data across a packet switched network like the Internet. Today, Internet Protocol Television or IPTV, is an emerging technology for delivery of digital video based signals. Put the building blocks of your IPTV system in place with the IPTV MPEG-2 from Blonder Tongue. The Blonder Tongue MPEG-2 IPTV Encoder permits the ability to stream a single audio/video program signal in MPEG-2 format over a LAN (Local Area Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network) infrastructure. The compact and modular package facilitates easy integration with existing or new systems. The unit transmits video in real time DVD quality at 30 fps (frames per second) and full screen resolution of 720 x 480 or lower to conserve system bandwidth. Multicast or Unicast modes are supported. The module is designed to work in conjunction with standards compliant viewers for the PC such as the Blonder Tongue IPClientViewer software or a TV monitor with an IP set top box.
Agile QAM Modulator (AQM) - The QAM Modulator is the basic unit of digital cable transmission. The Agile QAM Modulator from Blonder Tongue is the logical solution for any operator ready to take digital to the next level. The AQM integrates a sophisticated and advanced QAM modulator with a super low noise upconverter in a compact and simple to use modular package. The AQM is designed to accept an MPEG-2 ASI (Asynchronous Serial Interface) digital transport stream and modulate it into a QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) signal. The QAM modulator in the AQM achieves state-of-the-art performance with capabilities to improve bandwidth efficiency by supporting advanced QAM modes like 256, 512 & 1024 QAM. Plus, the built in advanced bit stuffing circuitry ensures that Null Packets are inserted into the ASI transport stream if needed to ensure the correct baud rate is transmitted. Excellent RF performance is vital to the health of every cable system. Incorporating digital signals into that cable system increases the complexity required to keep it operating smoothly. The AQM's integrated upconverter is designed to accomplish this very goal. The BT Agile QAM Modulator incorporates a custom design approach utilizing the latest generation technology available to ensure extremely low phase noise and a highly stable output signal. This eliminates the hassles and potential for problems caused by module based interconnects, especially when using products without integrated upconverters. The AQM is easily accommodated in Blonder Tongue's standard HE Series of micro-modular rack chassis units and the MIPS power supply units. This allows existing modulators or demodulators to coexist effortlessly.
- Tell us the value you gain from your TIA membership.
Blonder Tongue is very excited about the market potential that is opened up by belonging to TIA. Since convergence has blurred the lines between video providers and voice providers, an entirely new group of companies and potential customers have use for our video and data solutions.
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