A lot has been said about Aereo‘s technology — so much, in fact, that there are hundreds of pages worth of legal documents discussing the matter as it relates to the law.
That said, we thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at how Aereo actually works when it lets customers rent out remote DVR antennas and watch what amounts to live television on any device.
Once Aereo establishes itself in any new market, the team brings in what they call an Antenna Farm, or internally, a Raz-12.
This is essentially a small box, that sits on a platform on a data center roof, and is fully insulated, air-conditioned, and lightning proof. It also has one wall that is made entirely of RF transparent material, meaning that the equipment inside is capable of communicating with signals coming from outside the box.
Inside each Raz-12, there is essentially a wall full of technology. Within 12″ x 18″ cubes lies multiple antenna boards, each of which can hold up to 160 antennas. Within one cube, between 7,000 and 10,000 customers can receive service using their own individual antenna.
Once the antenna grabs the signal, which Kanojia constantly reminded us was of the volition of the customer and not Aereo, the little thumb-sized antennas change to pick up the requested frequency. Then, the transmission is sent over a fiber connection down into the data center, where Aereo transcodes the file from an MP2 to an MP4, and handles the storage of that recording on the remote DVR service.
Each rooftop array can hold about 12 cubes, thus the name Raz-12. In total, Aereo can serve around 120,000 customers with each rooftop installation, and the company purposefully buys out surrounding real estate when one antenna farm is established to add another Raz-12 whenever the market is ready for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment