Focus: Broadcasting

There certainly is a lot to talk about in the broadcasting market these days, and with NAB 2009 falling during a period that has seen announcements of massive telecommunication funding from the U.S. government and the digital TV switch coming in June, the show’s pace should be faster and busier than usual.     At the...

Tandberg Television won a contribution deal with Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), Egypt’s national broadcaster, to supply Tandberg’s MPEG-2 encoding solutions, Tandberg announced April 14.     The MPEG-2 encoders are part of ERTU’s efforts to expand its SDH microwave network covering the Red Sea and North Coast Sinai. The expanded network will interconnect more...

SatLink Communications signed a deal with SES Astra to acquire capacity on SES Astra’s Astra 4A (Sirius 4) satellite, SatLink announced April 14.     Astra 4A, located at 5 degrees East, will host SatLink’s new multi-channel per carrier  broadcasting platform, which aims to reach sub-Saharan African customers with free-to-air and encrypted DTH channels uplinked from...

Crawford Satellite Services has launched the All Sports Network (ASN), a live sports channel, in high definition (HD) to Asian audiences, marking its official entrance in the region, Crawford announced April 13.     Hong Kong-based Yes TV Network, who runs and operates ASN and other sports channels in Asia, selected Crawford for comprehensive origination services...

[Satellite Today 04-20-09] Antenna Technology Communications Inc. (ATCi) has unveiled a digital broadcast system designed for local channels and DMA extension systems which aims to cut the costs of satellite high-definition (HD) broadcasting, ATCi announced April 17.    ATCi said that the advent of MPEG-4/DVB-S2 and H.264 technology enabled the company to design and implement...

Harris Corp. released new enhancements to its Nexio family of video servers, the company announced April 8.     The enhancements include direct file importing of both GXF (SMPTE 360M) and Avid MediaStream MPEG files. These capabilities, coupled with the Nexio server’s ability to accommodate multiple software codecs, aim to streamline the broadcast workflow by eliminating...

[Satellite Today 04-20-09] Fox Pan American Sports, a Spanish-language sports programming venture, signed a multi-year contract with Intelsat for capacity on its IS-805 satellite to distribute the high-definition (HD) version of the program to Latin American markets, Intelsat announced April 16.     Intelsat’s IS-805 satellite, located at 55.5 degrees West, will deliver Fox Sports in...

[Satellite News 04-20-09] According to the results of a survey released by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) on April 16, 80 percent of pre-registered respondents said they plan on buying products or services at next week’s conference.     The survey is good news for satellite broadcasting companies looking to take advantage of the aggressive...

[Satellite Today 04-17-09] Tandberg Television signed a deal with one of Asia’s main voice and satellite service providers, Reach, to expand its high-definition (HD) satellite capabilities with Tandberg receivers, encoding, multiplexing and modulation solutions, Tandberg announced April 15.     Reach said the deal enables the company to provide video contribution circuits for TV networks and...

[Satellite News 04-16-09] Sky Television New Zealand is seeing strong demand for its recently launched high-definiton (HD) services that the uptake of the service has been the fastest in the company’s history, said John Fellet, Sky’s CEO.     “Out of everything we have ever done, [pay per view], PVR (personal video recorder), etc., the greatest...