Focus: Broadcasting

[Via Satellite 01-21-2015] Last month Es’hailSat celebrated the one-year anniversary of its first satellite, Es’hail 1. After entering service on Dec. 18, 2013, the Es’hailSat satellite saw extensive use from beIN Sports for transmitting the 2014 FIFA World Cup from Brazil. Es’hailSat supported the only Free-to-Air (FTA) broadcasting in the Middle East and Northern Africa...

[Via Satellite 01-21-2015] Mobile Telesystems (MTS) has selected Skyline Communications’ DataMiner end-to-end, multi-vendor network management platform to monitor and control the equipment at the company’s Moscow, Russia-based satellite Earth station. The DataMiner solution for MTS provides fully unified remote monitoring and control of all system components, as well as fault and performance management. The solution...

[Via Satellite 01-20-2015] Spacecom has been selected for broadcast services from its Amos 5 satellite at 17 degrees east for the bi-annual football championship competition, the Confederation of African Football‘s (CAF) Orange Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). The competition will use the satellite’s pan-African C-band beam to broadcast the three-week competition in HD. A total...

[Via Satellite 01-13-2015] The Eutelsat TV Observatory has revealed the results of its most recent research on the number of homes receiving channels broadcast by eight of Eutelsat’s television neighborhoods serving Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EMENA). The results show a strong uptick of homes receiving television directly or indirectly by satellite. A...

[Via Satellite 01-12-2015] SatLink Communications, a global provider of satellite solutions for broadcasting and telecommunications services, is making a shift from being primarily focused on satellite-oriented services to including complete content management services. The change is inspired by new demands from broadcasters, as well as an influx of non-traditional customers that previously did not look...

[Via Satellite 01-12-2015] Direct-To-Home (DTH) TV operator Tata Sky has launched its first 4K Set Top Box (STB) in India, in preparation for the upcoming cricket matches to be broadcast in Ultra-HD. Apart from relaying 4K content, the box will also showcase Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) channels. Tata Sky 4K is a...

[Via Satellite 01-09-2015] SiriusXM reached 27.3 million subscribers in 2014, adding more subscribers than anticipated based on the company’s guidance. In 2014 SiriusXM gained 1.75 million net subscriber additions, having originally anticipated 1.5 million. The company had 1.44 million self-pay net additions, again surpassing the expected guidance of 1.25 million and resulting in ending self-pay...

[Via Satellite 01-09-2015] ViXS Systems announced its new XCode 6800 family of media processing System-on-a-Chip (SoC) products that, according to the company, represent the first silicon solution to support 4K Ultra-HD with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and 12-bit color depth. The XCode 6800 continues to support current and previous video standards, while paving the way...

[Via Satellite 01-08-2015] DirecTV has selected a new USB powered Ethernet-to-coax adapter from Entropic and Wistron NeWeb Corporation for Ultra-HD 4K broadcasts. The adaptor provides sufficient throughput for Ultra-HD video and streaming media services to any DirecTV-ready television without requiring a separate Set-Top Box (STB). The new USB MoCA adapter uses Entropic’s fourth-generation MoCA 1.1...

[Via Satellite 01-08-2015] Several companies involved in different aspects of the broadcasting ecosystem have joined forces to create the Ultra-High Definition (UHD) Alliance.  Announced at CES 2015, the UHD Alliance is comprised of companies such as DirecTV, LG Electronics, Netflix, Sony Visual Product, Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Corporation, Dolby, Technicolor, The Walt Disney Studios, Twentieth...