ITV

Tag: Humax

  • Why Tata Sky’s Harit Nagpal is pained about the MPEG-4 STB rollout

    Why Tata Sky’s Harit Nagpal is pained about the MPEG-4 STB rollout

    MUMBAI: A press release hit indiantelevision.com yesterday disclosing how US chip company Broadcom had got a massive order to supply standard definition MPEG-4 set top boxes (STBs) to Tata Sky. A simple release right. But it surely got the goose of Tata Sky managing director Harit Nagpal.

    Tata Sky MD Harit Nagpal is still awaiting a response from ISRO officials
    “This entire exercise is costing Tata Sky about Rs 1000 crore,” was Nagpal’s admission, when indiantelevision.com called him up. “We are replacing close to 5-6 million MPEG-2 SD STBs at no cost to consumers over the next year. All of this is coming in from internal accruals.” Nagpal says the DTH operator normally supplies about three million STBs a year for new acquisitions and churn. “This year we will be doing about 9-10 million STBs,” says he.

     

    The volumes have forced him to bring in emergency teams to make sure they install 500,000 STBs a month (made by Huawei and Humax apart from other international STB makers). This is apart from the regular service teams, which handle regular installation and problems.

    “For us even at Tata Sky it is a massive exercise and we have been working on it for the past three months and have just started the rollout,” he reveals.

    But isn’t that good? “Upgrading the boxes will give me more capacity for 12-14 channels,” he admits. “But I am being forced to do this because Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) has yet to give me my transponders. I could have put this money elsewhere on expanding my digitisation plans.”

    Tata Sky’s signals are being beamed off Insat 4A; but it had signed a contract to lease 12 transponders on ISRO’s GSAT-10 satellite around five years ago which have not been delivered to Tata Sky yet, even after the satellite launched in to space in September 2012.

    “It is sad that after national publications and a medium such as yours have carried my complaint against ISRO, I have not got a single revert from it about our transponders. We intend to take legal action since all our attempts to reach ISRO have failed. The courts are on vacation now, when they open again, we will move them,” added Nagpal.

    The transponders would have allowed Tata Sky to increase its channel offerings to consumers. However, now the new STBs will allow Tata Sky to add more channels to its bouquet. “We have been adding channels in a phased manner; the process will now be accelerated with the MPEG-4 STB. By June-July next year we should be able to revise our channel offerings to consumers,” said Nagpal.

  • Major UK broadcasters team up for DTT high definition trial

    Major UK broadcasters team up for DTT high definition trial

    MUMBAI: BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five have joined forces to launch the UK’s first high definition (HD) trial broadcasts to terrestrial aerials. 

    A specially selected 450-strong audience sample collect their trial HD set top boxes this week for the closed technical digital terrestrial television (DTT) technical trial which is due to last six months.

    In an joint official statement issued, high definition is a step change in television technology which provides far clearer and more detailed pictures than normal standard definition TV. Each picture contains up to five times as much digital information as an ordinary TV picture. 

    The trial will offer participating broadcasters and their technical partners valuable lessons about delivering HD broadcasts on a digital terrestrial network and also research how the audience enjoys this new format.

    It will help to discover whether there could be HD broadcasts on Freeview in future. The trial is being conducted under an Ofcom licence which strictly limits the number of receivers and forbids reception of the trial stream by general members of the public.

    Humax and ADB (Advanced Digital Broadcast) have supplied the HD set top boxes for the trial. The DTT HD trial consists of low power transmissions from Crystal Palace in London on frequencies that are not suitable for high power broadcasting.

    National Grid Wireless (NGW) is transmitting the BBC’s HD stream, which went on air last month, and Red Bee Media provides play-out services.

    Arqiva is transmitting the multiplex shared by ITV, Channel 4 and Five, with Grass Valley, a business within Thomson, providing broadcast playout and video encoding equipment, states the official statement.

    Siemens Business Services is providing technical support for the BBC’s HD trial. The test broadcasts will use MPEG4 video coding, 8K carriers and 64QAM modulation at launch – different parameters may be tested during the trial period.

    The BBC’s trial DTT HD stream will offer identical programming to its HD trial broadcasts on satellite and cable over the trial period. That includes the BBC’s World Cup coverage, major Wimbledon matches and programming highlights such as Planet Earth and Bleak House.

  • Tri-Vision US V-chip patent licensed to Humax

    Tri-Vision US V-chip patent licensed to Humax

    MUMBAI: Tri-Vision International Ltd has licensed its V-chip technology to Humax Co. Ltd. of Korea, which is a leading digital satellite set-top box manufacturer.

    The license is valid through the expiration of the patent in 2016.

    “We are delighted to award a US license to one of the world’s leading digital satellite set-top box manufacturers. Humax is exporting an extensive array of diversified digital television products and will play an important role in North America’s transition to digital television,” said Tri-Vision CEO Najmul Siddiqui.

    The Humax licensing agreement resulted from negotiations, similar to those that are currently ongoing with the some 20 other companies who have expressed their intent to acquire Tri-Vision’s US V-chip license.

    As part of the transition to a digital television broadcast system in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated new rules to ensure that the V-chip can respond to rating system changes in all digital television receiver products. Tri-Vision’s open V-chip (also known as V-chip 2.0) is the only known, patented technology capable of accepting modified or new rating systems. The FCC rules took effect 15 March 2006.

    Companies which have acquired V-chip licenses for Tri-Vision’s Canadian Patent No. 2,179,474 and/or U.S. Patent 5,828,402 include Sony, Hitachi, Sanyo, Philips, JVC, Matsushita, Sharp, Pioneer, Apex Digital, Samsung, LG Electronics, Funai, Orion, Toshiba, Eastech, Erae Electronics, Seiko Epson, Shenzhen KXD, Newlane, Xiamen, Konka, Optoma, Coretronic, TTE, Syntax-Brillian, Akai, Chunghwa, NEC, Viewsonic amongst others.