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DirecTV Selects Tandberg MPEG-4 Encoding Platform for HD Expansion |
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SOUTHAMPTON, UK, Aug. 23, 2005/Satnews Daily/ — DirecTV, Inc. has selected Tandberg Television’s first-to-market high definition advanced compression technology in a deal valued at more than $9 million.
Tandberg said DirecTV, which has more than 13.9 million customers, will commission the first of 26 MPEG-4 AVC HD enabled transponders in the summer of 2005, marking the first North American launch of advanced HD encoding technology by a satellite direct-to-home (DTH) provider.
DirecTV is set to launch four new satellites over the next three years to vastly increase the number of local and national HD channels it carries. The first two of these satellites, Spaceway 1 and Spaceway 2, will launch in 2005 with the capacity for more than 500 local HD channels.
The next two satellites, DirecTV 10 and DirecTV 11, will launch in 2007 with the capacity for an additional 1000 local HD channels, more than 150 national HD channels and other new programming offerings.
Tandberg said its ability to deliver its advanced compression solutions in the first half of 2005 will enable DirecTV to meet its stated goal of launching new HD services to consumers in the second half of this year.
Each fully redundant system will feature the Tandberg EN5990, the first real-time HD encoder for MPEG-4 AVC, and a TANDBERG 1+1 HD multiplexing system that takes advantage of more than 10 years of compression system development. The EN5990 has been designed to operate in real-time TV delivery environments and guarantees no frame dropping. Key features include extensive video pre-processing for noise reduction and horizontal picture resolution resizing.
The multiplexes will combine the MPEG-4 AVC encoded HD channels into one bandwidth efficient stream for transmission over satellite. With the launch of the new services, DirecTV will have the ability to bring local HD programming to most of the U.S. population.
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