TV-Sat Fair "SatKrak" in Poland

SatKrak 2008 trade fair was held in Krakow, Poland, on October 16-18. This annual event is dedicated to digital television and broadcasting industry.

The exhibition took place in the biggest television market in Central and Eastern Europe, which is Poland. Among the exhibitors there were leading manufacturers and distributors of receiving equipment from Poland and abroad, and all operators of digital platforms.

Observing the range of the equipment, listening to the discussions at the stands of the exhibitors, and looking at the offers of the platforms, one can make predictions for the next year.

The forecasts on large interest in digital terrestrial TV broadcasts in Poland were too optimistic. HD programs available in several Polish cities did not meet a wider interest of consumers. However, many companies (Technisat, Maximum, RWT) presented tuners for receiving digital terrestrial television, with future prosperity in mind.

A prosperous segment of the market is still satellite industry. A wide range of attractive programs, especially HD broadcasts, gave the impetus for the customers to change their receiving equipment. Many of them are interested in receivers enabling independent recording of satellite channels.

According to the installation companies, a true hit can be prepaid offer. The new offer of TVN - "prepaid TV" - is in the focus of interest today. Probably other platforms will follow this way.


Everyone could notice popularity of multiswitch systems, being a standard solution in modern buildings. Multiswitches were presented by practically all companies dealing with satellite equipment.

During the fair there were traditional awards for "Best product on the market" in various categories. This year the range was extended by categories for assessment of programs broadcast by Polish operators. The best thematic channel in the Polish market became HD Sport - Canal +.

We are pleased to inform that we received the award for the "Best Product of the Year 2008" in the category "SMATV systems" - for TERRA headend distributed by DIPOL.

The ceremony of presenting the "Best Product of the Year" award
to Mr. Virgilijus Repecka from TERRA and Mr. Tadeusz Szydlowski from DIPOL

SatKrak 2008

Multimedia home at Satellite Fair in Cracow

It is the guideline of DIPOL exposition at SatKrak 2008 exhibition (October 16-18, Krakow, Poland). The idea for designing and implementing structural cabling combines all modern services needed by the residents of modern homes. The solutions are suitable both for one-family and multi-family houses.

The 7th edition of "Engagingly about antennas" has been adjudicated

Everyone could exercise imagination, and the results show that this activity, as usual, brought a lot of interesting compositions with antennas, the objects that does not seem to be so inspiring.
The entries often present antennas as bridges linking various worlds:

• technology - nature; industrial products often replace the natural rest places for birds: "We like it, will we fly away?" - Marek Niedoba,
• the present day - history; the antennas bridging the gap between old cultures and the most advanced technologies of the modern world: "Antenna in Mongolian grassland" - Piotr Szydlowski,
• deserted regions - research stations: "Global range" Grzegorz Kupis,
• poverty - consumption; antennas on falling apart homesteads - a symbol of the luxury for the poor: "Cairo" - Katarzyna Zwolska,
• peace of the nature - media noise; antennas found in backwoods: Evening cartoon, supper and bed - Paweł Skonieczny,
• sky - ground; "Morning news" - Weronika Zielinska, "Out of a window... - Mariusz Krason,
• isolation - a sense of community: "Loneliness in a big city"- Wojciech Pigla.

As every year, they were carefully watched by fine art photographer from Krakow, Mr. Pawel Zechenter, who awarded the first and second prizes. Another award has been granted by the DIPOL Technical Department.

Megapixel revolution in CCTV

Development of IP CCTV technology has been relatively slow to date. An important reason was that DVRs with network functions (sometimes more advanced than those of some IP cameras) supported by low-cost analog cameras were an attractive alternative to IP CCTV systems.

But the limit of analog CCTV (PAL, NTSC) is resolution of the images (PAL: 720 x 576). Such restrictions do not exist in the IP CCTV systems equipped with megapixel cameras.

An analysis of the advantages of megapixel cameras can be carried out assuming that the optimum monitoring requires approximately 130 pixels per one meter of the observed object. For a 50-meter wide scene, an analog system (720 pixels) would require to employ 9 cameras. In the case of a camera with 1.3 Mpix resolution (1280 x 1024), the number can be reduced to 5 such cameras, for a 2 Mpix camera - only 4 cameras will do the same job.

A smaller number of cameras has other advantages. First of all, it lowers the cost and time of installation and maintenance. It also lowers operational costs - it is easier to conduct surveillance with a smaller number of points.

Of course, there is another alternative for megapixel cameras - very popular speed dome/ PTZ cameras. With adequate lens, it is even possible to cover the area mentioned above with a single PTZ camera. However, such a solution has many drawbacks. First of all, the camera can be set only in one of two ways. The first one provides an overall view, without possibility of recognition of some important details, e.g. the license number of a car. The second way, using optical zoom, increases the capability of identifying details, but at the expense of losing the rest of the scene.

In addition, PTZ camera has to be controlled by the operator, who must decide what is interesting at the moment and focus on that area. In the case of fixed megapixel cameras, there is always available a complete picture, with all events recorded by the system. Due to a very high resolution of the cameras, the details can be viewed using digital zoom.