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Tag: satellite

  • US Blu-ray and HDTV Households Growing


    Blu-ray Disc player household penetration is up to 12.3 million in the US for the first quarter of 2009, a 71 per cent gain year over year, according to a survey.

    Research firm Centris also found that the number of American households with an HDTV is up to 50.5 million – a gain of 33 per cent from the first quarter of 2008.

    Both satellite and cable industries appear to have matured, however, with satellite subscribers up only slightly to 32 million and cable subscribers mostly unchanged at just less than 63 million.

    Centris’ US Communications and Entertainment report also notes large year over year gains in household penetration for all three next generation gaming systems: 15.2 million for the Nintendo Wii (up 85%), 11.4 million for Xbox 360 (up 28%) and 7 million for PlayStation 3 (up 52%).

    Centris president William Beaumont said that as with its previous research findings, there are several key observable trends as technology developments, marketing programs and the economy take their toll on the industries in which our clients compete.

    "In some areas, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in consumer use of home technology, which flies in the face of what one might expect in this economic landscape," he said.

  • DiBcom And Solaris DVB-SH Partnership Signals "New Era" For Mobile TV


    DiBcom has signed a partnership agreement with Solaris Mobile to use its receiver technology to enable mobile devices to receive content such as mobile TV transmitted by satellite.

    The link-up centres around Solaris’ recently launched Eutelsat W2A satellite, which carries Europe’s first S-Band payload.

    It will offer Mobile Satellite Services (MSS), including the broadcasting of video, radio and data to mobile devices and vehicle receivers.
    The DVB-SH hybrid satellite will also supply a range of interactive mobile services.

    DiBcom supplies DVB-SH broadcast receiver solutions that give mobile devices access to the multimedia content transmitted by satellite and terrestrial repeater.

    The receivers are a multi-band and multi-mode solution featuring dual RF tuners supports DVB-SH, DVB-H and DVB-T in S-Band and UHF frequencies.

    In February, DiBcom announced it was launching a new platform that offers device manufacturers a solution to the problem of multiple standards worldwide for fixed and mobile TV.

    Yannick Levy, CEO of DiBcom, said its involvement in this "ground-breaking" mobile satellite launch was both a logical and strategic choice.

    He said the agreement between Solaris Mobile and DiBcom will be an enabling force in Europe’s mobile television markets by providing distribution technology for mass market consumption in the most economic way. Live trials using DVB-SH are currently underway in France, Spain and Italy.

    California-based MobiTV is also looking to broaden its reach and is in the process of developing its services for the European market.

    "We are witnessing the dawn of a whole new era for Mobile TV services with truely universal continental coverage," said Levy.

    "There is no doubt that Solaris Mobile will leverage the industry-leading knowledge and experience of its founding companies towards a new set of mobile applications of real value to end users throughout Europe."

    Steve Maine, president and CEO of Solaris Mobile, said it is one of four operators that submitted an application to the European Commission last October for the rollout of mobile satellite services over dedicated S-Band spectrum.

    He said this took place under a single European selection procedure and on behalf of the 27 Member States of the EU.

    "We are convinced that this is the most innovative opportunity in Europe’s telecommunications and media marketplaces and are extremely pleased that DiBcom is a leading participant in one of our major strategic mobile satellite service initiatives," he said.

  • Indian Satellite TV Is Propelling Worldwide Market


    The worldwide market for pay-Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite television rose significantly in 2008, with an estimated 18 per cent rise in subscriptions, reports In-Stat.

    It suggests the primary reason for this increase was strong growth in the Indian market, which more than doubled to about 9 million subscribers at the end of 2008.

    Mike Paxton, analyst with the high-tech market research firm, said India now has five pay DTH satellite providers with a sixth expected to enter the market early in 2009.

    "Additionally, in the Asia/Pacific region, China is likely to introduce a pay DTH satellite service in 2009 or 2010, which will help sustain strong growth in Asia," he said.

    Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

    • There will be nearly 200 million DTH pay-TV subscribers worldwide by 2012.
    • Worldwide revenues will eclipse USD $142.7 billion by 2011.
    • Eastern Europe had the strongest regional subscriber growth rate in 2008, with an increase of 63.5 per cent over 2007.
    • Subscribers in Russia more than doubled from year-end 2007 to Mid-2008 to nearly 3.8 million.
    • Digital visual interface (DVI) and high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), are related, high-bandwidth, unidirectional, uncompressed digital interface standards.

  • XStreamHD Beams "Blu-ray" Quality Video Direct-to-Home


    XStreamHD has successfully tested a transport system that delivers Full HD movies, music, and games directly to subscriber homes via satellite.

    The system, tested on the AMC-16 satellite at 85 degrees west ongitude, will be able to provide content throughout North America.

    XStreamHD, which first announced its plans for the innovative new satellite delivery system in January at CES 2008, had expected to launch the service in October.

    George Gonzalez, founder and CEO of XStreamHD, said today that the service will be able to deliver Full HD (1080p) content to homes, independent of Internet or cable congestion, by unlocking existing FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) capacity.

    He said the XStreamHD test had shown that the network’s could deliver Blu-ray quality video with up to 7.1 lossless channels of DTS Master Audio.

    The company is to offer its customers access to movies, HDTV, music and electronic games.

    There’s no word yet about partnerships for movies or HDTV content but as XStreamHD will be showcasing its transport system next month at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, more might be revealed then.

  • VOD Will Reach Blu-ray Quality – And Beyond

    hdtv.biz-news.com spoke to Mark Horchler, corporate marketing director with video compression provider ATEME, about its plans to deliver video of Blu-ray quality and beyond.

    The Blu-ray Disc Association doesn’t take kindly to satellite and cable providers claiming their products deliver high definition picture and sound “equal” to that delivered by Blu-ray Disc.

    The trade body recently described just such assertions of equality as irresponsible and misleading to the consumer.

    Yet if the noises coming out of video compression provider ATEME are anything to go by, the BDA might have to get used to it.

    ATEME is a leading provider of MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 video compression technology.

    Its offline and streaming encoders power numerous high-end digital video applications, including mobile TV, Video on Demand (VOD) and IPTV.

    These solutions support both standard and HD content, deployed across any platform – from mobile to Ultra HD.

    Mark Horchler, corporate marketing director with ATEME, said there was room for continued improvement with H.264.
    He said the 3rd generation of the codec had just been released and was 25 per cent more efficient.

    “I think we are reaching near Blu-ray quality,” he said. “I have not made a set by set comparison but we are there.”

    Horchler said image quality was continually improving and the company was experimenting with Ultra High Definition video.

    “That’s the future of high definition,” he said. “H.264 will take us to Blu-ray quality and beyond. Blu-ray is largely based on H.264 technology.”

    France, where ATEME was founded in 1991 and has its head office at Bièvres near Paris, is a strong market for the company.

    It recently announced that its H.264 encoding solutions were now serving over one million French IPTV customers in HD.

    This was as a result of major French broadcasters using the encoders to provide HD video over low bitrates.

    IPTV has reached mass market status in France, largely because of its strong ADSL subscriber base of over 15 million customers, value for money offered by triple play services and healthy competition amongst ISPs.

    By the end of this year, France is expected to have up to six million IPTV subscribers, with a quarter having access to HD channels such as France 2 and M6 that use ATEME’s H.264 encoders.

    “France is a leading market for IPTV and is miles ahead of any other country in Europe, if not the world,” said Horchler.

    However, he said that while there was a lack of HD content in some markets, it was only a matter of time before that changed.

    “The potential for HDTV is huge. We are only at the beginning,” he said.

    “As more and more people adopt HD equipment, flat-screen TVs and so on, there will be a snowball effect. People will ask for more HD content.”

    Every market is different

    While IPTV is particularly strong in France, Horchler said that in other countries the infrastructure favored cable or satellite.

    In the US, where the cable market uses MPEG-2, he said there was a strong argument for using H.264 and he believed cable providers would start adopting it.

    “Our solutions carry over all these platforms,” he said.

    Another area where ATEME saw potential for H.264 was the mobile market, something that fitted well with its partnership agreement with Adobe.

    Horchler said the codec could adapt to various sizes and shapes of media device and had a scaleability that allowed the same video to be broadcast on HDTV or a mobile phone, for instance.

    This was a feature that would fit well with the live broadcast of sporting events.

    The internet offers immense possibilities for video and Horchler said he was confident that H.264 would be able to adapt to new opportunities as they emerged.

    He said there were many interesting applications, such as bundling video with advertising services, that were just beginning to take shape.

    “We are in that space. We work with Adobe Flash and this is compatible with 90 per cent of PCs out there,” he said. “I am sure by next year there will be some crazy idea for a business.

    “But the codec will adapt to the business model. It’s so flexible.”

  • Breakthrough claimed for live HD video transmission

    NextIO technology allows real-time video encoding at under 3Mbps – making it possible to deliver live HDTV at compression up to six times higher than current rates

    Cable, satellite and IPTV providers will be able to pack more HD video onto limited bandwidth using technology developed by NextIO and Broadcast International.

    The pair have teamed up to combine NextIO’s ExpressConnect solution and BI’s ultra-high speed video compression technology.

    In a statement released before the IPTV North America show in Chicago, the companies said that the combined technologies would “change the video distribution world” by making it possible for video providers to deliver live HDTV at compression levels four to six times higher than is currently possible.

    Conservation of limited bandwidth resources has become a critical requirement in the broadcast, cable, satellite, mobile and IPTV markets, especially as bandwidth-intensive, high-definition video becomes the industry standard.

    At the Chicago show, NextIO, specialists in virtualized I/O solutions, and Broadcast International, producers of low-bandwidth video compression software, demonstrated a real-time video encoding at under 3Mbps.

    This is compared to the MPEG 2 standard of 19.4 Mbps at which most HD video is transmitted.
    The two companies say this will enable video providers to pack more HD video onto limited bandwidth.

    In a statement released before the Chicago show, they said the NextIO technology solves one of the most important challenges encountered by high-speed HD video transmission – limited and limiting input/output (I/O) throughput.

    “The ultra-high speed connections provided by the Next/I/O’s PCI Express-based ExpressConnect solutions allow maximum and scalable data flow to the system, commensurate with the processing power of the IBM BladeCenter environment,” the statement said.

    “This input speed, combined with the unrivaled power of the underlying CPU technology, enables BI’s CodecSys video compression software to deliver encoded HD video in real-time at breakthrough rates, under 3 Mbps.”

    Rod Tiede, CEO of Broadcast International, said the technology offered an “unmatched solution” to the challenge of video compression.
    “The scalability of the NextI/O design provides us the ability to deliver a large number of high definition video inputs to our system without delays and to take full advantage of the processing capabilities of the IBM platform,” he said.
    “Our aim is to shatter the bandwidth barrier completely with our solution.”

  • UK viewers reluctant to pay for HDTV

    Digital revolution sweeps UK but viewers appear unwilling to pay for limited range of HD channels

    UK households with digital televisions as their main set now account for 87.2 per cent of the total, according to a study by Ofcom.
    The survey by the independent communications industry regulator revealed how the digital TV market is divided up between the three main forms – digital terrestrial television (DTT), satellite and cable television.

    Unsurprisingly, DTT’s freeview is the most popular, with 9.6 million homes using a digital tuner to receive an expanded range of terrestrial channels – up 1.3 million in the last 12 months.

    Sky has signed up 332,000 new subscribers to its satellite services over the past twelve months and now hase 8.3 million customers, while Sky+ received an additional 262,000 subscribers.
    However, the figures for SkyHD are only up by 43,000 to 465,000 subscribers.

    With the HD market still developing in much of Europe, programming choices are much more limited than in the US, where competition is leading to a rapid expansion of channels.
    The narrower choice of HD channels in the UK is seen as contributing to viewers’ hesitance to pay for HD services currently on offer.


    Ofcom’s Digital Progress Report also shows that Virgin Media cable subscribers now amount to over 3.5 million, up by 36,800 in the first quarter of this year.
    Cable viewers subscribing to Virgin’s digital video recorder service known as V+ -which can also be used to watch HD services – now amount to 364,200..
    Almost half of Virgin Media customers (48 per cent) were using its video on demand service, with viewing up 10 per cent on the previous quarter.

  • HDTV to follow lead of smartphone

    In the same way that mobiles will all soon be “smartphones”, HDTV will simply become “TV”

    BY 2015 nobody will refer to “high definition” TV because HD will be the standard form of free television everywhere.
    But the HD broadcast offering in Europe will largely remain patchy during the intervening transition period, according to a report by Screen Digest.
    The study says HDTV will mainly develop as a pay TV product in Europe over the next five years – and mostly as a satellite product.

    A major factor for this is the lack of HD on free-to-air platforms, with only Sweden having already launched HD on free DTT and only France and the UK likely to follow in the short-mid-term.

    The report says that despite its name, Freesat HD has a disappointing HD line-up and is not likely to make a strong market impact in the UK.
    Other barriers to HDTV uptake are a lack of local HD channels in many countries, with pay TV operators relying mostly on US HD channels supply so far.
    The study concludes that a number of European pay TV operators “lack of ambition” when it comes to HDTV.

    In the report, HDTV 2008: Global Uptake, Strategies and Business Models, three critical success factors that will support the successful migration to HDTV are identified:
    – penetration of HD-ready displays
    – supply of HD content and HD channels
    – the availability of HD broadcast on a variety of television platforms.

    The report shows that all these are now cleared for a sustainable migration to HD in the long term.
    But it adds: “In the next five years, HDTV will mainly develop as a pay TV product in Europe, and mostly a satellite product.
    “However after analogue switch-offs are completed between 2010 and 2012, and digital free-to-air platforms are upgraded to more advanced technologies, they will end-up with more bandwidth capacity and become more widely accessible.”

    This, says the report, will kick-start the next phase of HDTV migration as HD becomes the mainstream and ultimately, the standard form of free television around the middle of next decade.

    There is a clear connection between the depth of the HD offerings and the take up of HD by subscribers, according to the study.
    It says that HD has not been pushed hard enough yet by many of Europe’s pay TV operators despite being used heavily as a marketing tool.
    The problem is that this isn’t followed through with the delivery of HD channels.
    Premiere in Germany still only offers two HD channels and its HD uptake is sluggish.
    By contrast BSkyB has now 17 HD channels covering all genres, and on the back of this has signed up almost 500,000 subscribers in less than two years – the fastest take-up of any new BSkyB product.
    The report says that in European pay TV markets that show signs of maturity, operators can use HD to drive ARPU, increase loyalty and reduce churn rates.
    HDTV can also drive pay TV acquisition, as new owners of HD-ready sets are frustrated by the lack of free HD sources.
    “Pay TV operators should therefore seize this window of opportunity before free TV eventually accommodates more HD,” says the report.

    The report also says that small and medium sized pay-TV operators might benefit from reduced costs of transmission and release bigger capacity by migrating their subscribers to MPEG4 at an early stage.

    Click here to view the report summary and its key findings

  • Soccer fans enjoy ITV's first HD programming as Euro 2008 matches broadcast on Freesat


    The UK’s ITV network has launched its HD service on Freesat by broadcasting the opening games from Euro 2008.
    Freesat is a subscription-free, digital satellite TV service from ITV and the BBC.
    Viewers can see all the games the BBC has rights to in high definition on Virgin Media and Sky, but ITV announced that its debut HD programmes would be matches on the opening few days of the football tournament.
    The first HD offering from ITV was the Portugal v Turkey match on Saturday.
    Following this, ITV’s games through to the 13th of June will also be available in high definition, by pressing the red button on ITV1 when viewing on Freesat.
    Although Euro 2008 will occupy the channel for the next few weeks, Simon Fell, Controller Emerging Technologies, ITV Consumer, said there would also be HD coverage of England football internationals, the Champions League football and selected dramas.
    Speaking at Understanding and Solutions’ Driving Digital Content event, Mr Fell said the red button strategy was made necessary by the structure of the ITV Network. “We’re a regional business funded by advertising and that’s the model we have to keep to,” he said.
    Once an HD broadcast has completed, viewers will be returned to their local ITV region.

  • Intelsat announces appointment of acting Chief Financial Officer

    Intelsat, Ltd., the world’s leading provider of fixed satellite services, has appointed its Chief Executive Officer, David McGlade, as acting Chief Financial Officer.
    The announcment follows the resignation of Jeffrey Freimark from the position of CFO, a move that was effective from June 5. He is leaving to pursue other opportunities.
    Mr McGlade will also continue to serve as CEO while an external search for a permanent CFO is carried out.
    In a statement, Mr McGlade said: “Jeff’s oversight of the PanAmSat acquisition financing and his involvement in the integration process, together with his focus on assuring our compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, were important factors in our corporate success over the past few years.
    “We thank him for his contributions to Intelsat, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. Our business is performing well.
    “Last month, Intelsat reported a strong quarter with record revenues and successfully launched the Galaxy 18 satellite.
    “We remain focused on executing our proven business plan.”