[Satellite News 10-14-10] The potential for a consumer market leap to 3-D broadcast content has yielded a fair share of caution from analysts focused on short-term growth, but RRSat Deputy Vice President of Sales Shlomi Izkovitz is much more optimistic about the long-term prospects for 3-D.
    As RRSats plans to expand its content distribution business to hot spots in Latin America, Asia and Europe, Izkovitz told Satellite News that he has noticed a common global trend in 3-D content take up. “Right now, 3-D is all about occasional events, such as sports, theater and live entertainment. Since 3-D is still relatively new, the set-top boxes needed to bring this content into homes are still too expensive. I give the market another five years before 3-D home entertainment becomes widespread.”
    Izkovitz said consumers are just getting a taste of 3-D’s potential to deliver high-demand content and live events that appeal to global audiences. This demand has helped developers and manufacturers build more efficient hardware, making it easier for content distributors, such as RRSat, to deliver the product. “The MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 transition is now happening globally and at a much faster rate, as satellite and fiber work more efficiently to move content from one region to another. For example, this makes it possible to deliver live concerts happening in the United States to audiences in Europe and Asia at much higher quality rates, and vice versa. Now, we can deliver content from NHK in Japan at rates of 6 megabits per second, which is a solid improvement over what was possible even a year ago.”
    RRSat’s distribution services include uplinking, downlinking, turnaround and end-to-end transmission. The company’s network architecture includes a number of satellites, including Eutelsat’s Eurobird 9A satellite, which delivers content from RRSat’s facility in London.
    Izkovitz said its fleet of partner satellites will help the company hit one of its hotspots in Europe’s DTH market, but RRSat also is planning to capitalize on a valuable opportunity in Latin America. “We see the domestic services and live sports event markets in Latin America as having tremendous growth potential. While we are also focusing on expanding our presence in North America, we have always kept this key region in mind, and you can expect us to be making progress there soon.”
    With more than 130 channels originating from its playout facilities, analysts are taking notice of RRSat’s progress. SmarTrend listed RRSat with the highest dividend yield in the industry at a return-for-investor yield of 3.6 percent in SmarTrend’s October Cable & Satellite industry report. RRSat’s dividend yield ranked above broadcast giants Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cablevision Systems.
    “It is a very busy and exciting time for us,” Izkovitz said. “We’re set to make a big announcement on MPEG-4 very soon, and we have a lot of options for future growth.”