Focus: Broadcasting

[Satellite TODAY 03-10-11] SatLink Communications is upgrading its occasional-use capabilities by adding HD DVB-S2 feeds and other technologies to its facilities, the company announced March 9.     The company’s HD DVB-S2 transition includes more than $1 million in asset investments to reach 25 simultaneous outgoing transmission capabilities along with its existing ability to handle up to...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 03-07-11] Romanian telco RomTelecom has agreed to acquire DTH operator Boom TV in a deal that represents a significant consolidation of the Romanian DTH market, RomTelecom announced March 3.     A RomTelecom spokesperson told Satellite TODAY Insider that RomTelecom, with more than 1 million DTH and IPTV subscribers, will add another 100,000...

[Satellite News 03-08-11] Cisco Systems launched its Internet Router in Space (IRIS) program on the Intelsat 14 satellite when the spacecraft was orbited in November 2009.      The router’s configuration, triggered by a development contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, was designed to merge communications received on various frequency bands and transmit them to...

[Satellite TODAY 03-04-11] AsiaSat has launched a new DVB-S2 DTH radio and television platform in Australia and New Zealand, the operator announced March 23.     Taiwanese broadcaster Teleport Access Services (TAS) will operate the platform, which is hosted on a full AsiaSat 4 Ku-band transponder at 122 degrees East. The service aims to carry an...

[Satellite TODAY 03-02-11] Spanish broadcaster Starmax HD has contracted GlobeCast to provide aggregation, encryption and delivery of the full bouquet of channels broadcast to households across Spain, GlobeCast announced March 1.     GlobeCast’s will provide Starmax HD with an end-to-end service that includes fiber contribution from several countries; reception of SD and HD channels at...

The BBC strives to be cutting edge in providing services to households throughout the United Kingdom. The broadcaster made the move to HD long before many broadcasters and is formulating its 3-D TV strategy. Danielle Nagler, the BBC’s head of 3-D and HD, discusses these areas.   VIA SATELLITE: What are the BBC’s plans for...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 03-01-11] Deutsche Telekom (DT) has signed a deal with SES Astra to combine Astra`s satellite free-TV offer, including HD Plus, with its IPTV product Entertain Sat, DT announced Feb. 28.     The offer makes DT the latest European telco to integrate a satellite product in its home market offering, which will include...

[Satellite TODAY 03-01-11] Ericsson has unveiled its Voyager 2 scalable satellite newsgathering product to meet growing consumer demand for HD news services, the company announced Feb. 28.    Voyager 2, Ericsson’s fifth-generation DSNG product, is built upon a hot-swappable 1RU chassis with color input confidence monitoring and features MPEG-4 AVC 4:2:2 encoding with 10-bit precision...

[Satellite News 03-01-11] About 42 percent of the 37 million IP-enabled, hybrid set-top boxes shipped worldwide in 2010 were satellite-enabled, according to a Feb. 28 report from IMS Research.     The study, “On-Demand Services Business Models: Video, Games and Over-the-Top (OTT) — 2011 edition,” included predictions that OTT broadcasting would be seen as one of...

[Satellite TODAY Insider 02-28-11] Sky Deutschland added more than 130,000 subscribers in its 2010 fourth quarter to end the year with nearly 2.7 million subscribers in Germany and Austria, the operator announced in its 2010 full-year results issued Feb. 24.     Sky Deutschland’s 2010 fourth quarter subscriber gains were a drastic improvement compared to its...