Business News Holding

Tag: olympics

  • New Zealand warms to HDTV

    Sports mad Kiwis quick to sign up for new Freeview HD service

    Just three months after going live in New Zealand, the free-to-air digital television and radio service Freeview has reported an impressive response to its new high def offering.

    Since its launch in April, 7,594 HD enabled homes have taken the Freeview HD service
    Steve Browning, Freeview’s general manager, admitted that he hadn’t expected uptake to be “quite this fast”.

    He said plans were already in place to produce a Freeview PVR.
    “And with the recent launch of Sony BRAVIA V and W series digital TVs with Freeview HD built in we are seeing the different options available to access free digital TV growing,” he said.

    In general terms, a total of 123,903 receivers had been sold by the end of June, which roughly equates to 8 per cent of New Zealand homes having access to the service.

    Freeview are fully expecting adoption to increase further when the Olympics kick off, with the service offering “24/7 coverage” in HD.

  • European broadcasters expand HD capacity in advance of summer of sport


    The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has taken delivery of HDTV MPEG-2 encoder equipment in order to expand capacity on its contribution network.
    Supplied by NTT Electronics Corporation, the Encoder HE5100 will allow the organisation’s members to cope with the rising demand for HD content.
    This is expected to increase further over the summer with the expansion of HD broadcasts for various major sporting events.
    These include the Beijing Olympics, Euro 2008, the Tour de France, and tennis events at Paris’ Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
    The HDTV MPEG-2 Encoder HE5100 delivered to the EBU, the largest association of national broadcasters in the world, incorporates the internally-developed single-chip MPEG-2 codec LSI.
    As well as allowing the EBU to meet the increasing demand for HD content, the encoder provides high image quality in a compact unit.
    It supports both HDTV signals (1080p/1080i/720p) and SDTV signals (576i/512i/480i).
    NTT Electronics has developed a variety of video compression technologies.