Just a few weeks ago, DirecTV announced that they plan on using MPEG4 for its high definition broadcasts. Now DirecTV has made a deal worth over $9 million with TANDBERG Televisions to use its advanced MPEG-4 AVC compression technology to deliver its HD content. DirecTV will begin broadcasting 26 high definition TV channels using the MPEG-4 AVC HD codec this summer, thus making them the first to begin using advanced HD encoding technology by direct-to-home satellite along being the first on the market for MPEG-4 AVC HD.
Recently, DirecTV announced they will launch four new satellites specifically for HDTV over the next three years. The first two known as Spaceway 1 & 2 will be launched this year to provide over 500 HDTV channels of local content. The next two known as DIRECTV 10 & 11 will be launched in 2007 to deliver a further 1000 local channels along with 150 national HDTV channels.
DirecTV will use the TANDBERG EN5990, the world's first MPEG-4 AVC real-time HD encoder that also performs pre-processing to reduce noise, horizontal image resizing and guarantees no frame skipping. DirecTV had successfully evaluated a complete MPEG-4 AVC HD encoding system from TANDBERG Television during the last quarter of 2004 including over a satellite link and at the recent CES Show in Las Vegas, DirecTV had demonstrated its HD service plan with the EN5990.
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Leading U.S. satellite television provider to increase capacity with TANDBERG MPEG-4 AVC technology to enable delivery of multiple HD channels to the home Southampton, UK, February 15th, 2005, TANDBERG Television today confirmed that DIRECTV, Inc. has selected its first-to-market high definition advanced compression technology in a deal valued at more than $9 million. DIRECTV, the nation's leading and fastest-growing digital multichannel television service provider with 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. The announcement follows DIRECTV's recent news that it will 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 Television's ability to deliver its advanced compression solutions in the first half of 2005 enables DIRECTV to meet its stated goal of launching new HD services to consumers in the second half of this year. Read the full press release here. |
While HDTV fans in the US will be happy to hear about this, it will be interesting to see if DirecTV offers to upgrade its viewer's boxes to handle the new codec free-of-charge or if the consumer must pay a fee upgrade their box. With a rather large number of HDTV broadcasts expected for 2007, it looks like they can begin phasing out their standard definition channels at that stage, so long as their upcoming HDTV boxes are fully compliant with existing standard definition televisions.
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Source: TANDBERG Television - Press
