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Tag: hd-capable

  • Pace Secures Brazilian HD Set-Top Box Deal


    Pace is to provide an HD-capable set-top box to Latin America’s largest multi-service cable provider.

    Brazil’s cable operator NET Serviços de Comunicação is buying the UK firms’s new HD-capable set-top unit as part of its drive to establish a fully HD, digitised customer base.

    Márcio Carvalho, products and services director at NET said the Brazilian pay-TV market is developing rapidly.

    He said the provision of high-definition content is increasingly becoming a service expectation in the region as the market matures.

    "This new deployment will dramatically increase our HD content reach and provides us with a platform to introduce additional entertainment services for subscribers," he said.

    The low environmental impact (LEI) box uses Nagra and Open TV middleware to deliver content securely over the cable network.

    NET Serviços’ integrated services include Pay TV (NET), Digital Video (NET Digital), High Definition Digital Video (NET Digital HD), high definition DVR (NET Digital HD Max), bi-directional broadband internet access (NET Vírtua) and voice (NET Fone).

    Hervé Matthieu, vice president of sales at Pace said the deployment of its HD-capable set-top box is a step forward in driving HD penetration in the region.

  • HD-Capable Device Shipments To Triple by 2012


    As HD becomes the global video standard shipments of high-definition set-top boxes (STBs), camcorders, DVD players and video-game consoles are expected to triple from 2008 to 2012, according to iSuppli.

    Shipments of HD-capable equipment in these categories will rise to 202 million units by 2012, up from 68.9 million in 2008.

    The researchers forecast that by 2012, 52.9 per cent of STBs, camcorders, DVD players and game consoles shipped will be HD-capable, up from 21.6 per cent in 2008.

    Randy Lawson, senior analyst for DTV and display electronics at iSuppli, said that for the last 20 years, HD video has been the holy grail for consumer electronics OEMs, as well as for avid home theater fans around the world.

    "The high-tech industry’s efforts to provide HD service to every home now are finally coming to fruition," he said.

    "This has resulted in an explosion of shipments of consumer-electronics devices that support HD video, from new Blu-ray DVD players to ultra-thin LCD HDTVs, and even some portable media players."

    This is reflected in a surge in the availability of HD content.

    In some mature television markets this has reached the stage where hundreds of high-definition channels now are being offered by the entire spectrum of television service providers – from cable, to satellite, to terrestrial and to even to telecom – due to the rollout of Internet protocol television (IPTV) services.

    iSuppli points to the rapidly growing list of HD content suppliers, along with the fast-rising adoption rates seen for HDTVs and STBs, as a clear indication that HD video transmission and delivery are becoming major motivators for consumer adoption of newer technology television displays and playback/recording equipment.

    Added to this is the fact that the broadcast TV market is rapidly shifting to all-digital television formats, further raising the incentive for the inclusion of HD support in consumer-electronics devices.

  • Euro HD To Nearly Triple In Five Years


    The number of HDTVs in European households is set to rise from 59 million now to 170 million by 2013.

    What’s more encouraging is the number of HD channels distributed in Europe should go from the current 130 to more than 600 in the same period, according to a study by NPA Conseil and Euroconsult.

    The boost to high-def content should hopefully go some way to address Europe’s dismal performance compared to the US and Japan.

    An In-Stat study recently highlighted the fact that 61 per cent of the global total of 36 million HDTV households – defined as households having both an installed HD-capable TV set and also receiving and watching HD programming – are in the US.

    Last year, France was the first in Europe to launch an HD platform on DTT.