YahLive, the HD television satellite platform for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, SES, the DTH global satellite broadcast operator, and ChannelSculptor, a Dubai-based TV content and broadcast consultancy, have revealed that whilst MENA may be ahead of Europe in terms of HDTV demand as measured by high HDTV screen sales, increased channel growth and HDTV growth rates [...]
A few months ago, a 55” or 65” Sony Bravia 4K television would have cost both arms and legs. Now Sony has looked again and they’ll only cost one arm and a leg! ‘Priced to sell’ might be Sony’s mantra for these Bravia X9 LED beasts, which still come it at €4,500 for the 55” unit, and a pricier €7,000 [...]
Japan’s public broadcaster has shown what it claims is the world’s first 8K ‘Super Hi-Vision’ movie. The film was shown on May 16th and 17th and was a short comedy entitled Beauties À La Carte. In addition, NHK will showcase other types of 8K programming on a giant 220” TV screen with what they claim is the highest-resolution available today. [...]
Dubai-based My-HD is launching a low-cost all-HD bundle of 20 channels exclusively using Arabsat and with the aim of dramatically undercutting the prices charged by the Middle East’s existing pay-TV bouquets of OSN, Al Jazeera Sports and Abu Dhabi Sports. CEO Cliff Nelson, who was until recently SVP-Operations & Platform Development at OSN, and had previously held senior positions at [...]
A flawless lift-off and a 9 hour launch process onboard a Proton-Breeze M rocket saw the successful launch of a new Eutelsat satellite to the 3 degrees East position. The satellite is built by Thales Alenia Space and lift-off from the Baikonur launch site took place on May 14th at 16.02 GMT. Some 12 hours after launch a partial deployment [...]
Madrid-based satellite operator Hispasat used its giant Amazonas 3 satellite to beam 4K Ultra-HDTV signals into Brazil. The test signals went to – at least one – 84” LG receiver at an event in Rio to help celebrate the coming into use of the new Amazonas 3 satellite. Hispasat hasd earlier trialled 4K/Ultra HDTV at the Mobile World Congress Event [...]
HD+, the encrypted high-definition service for Germany, is making progress. SES’s latest numbers to March 31st, say that it now has 1.1 million subscribers, up 158, 768 since December 31st (when the total stood at 944,933). Expressed as a percentage this represents growth of 17 per cent during the quarter-year. The growth means that the subscriber base has doubled in [...]
UPC DTH, the leading satellite television provider in Central and Eastern Europe, has confirmed that UPC Direct, servicing Hungary, will showcase in cooperation with Sport 1 HD this year’s Champions League final in cutting edge 3D. On May 25th, UPC Direct will broadcast the event in 3D to anyone that has access to a 3D TV set and an HD [...]
Coverage of this past winter’s ‘X Games 16’ from Aspen, Colorado, has won a Sports EMMY for the Jim Cameron- Vince Pace technical team. The EMMY award was given in New York to Cameron-PaceGroup (CPG) for their work in capturing the event in 3D for ESPN’s 3D channel. The award (for Outstanding Technical Team Remote) recognised Cameron-Pace’s coverage with 34 [...]
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK says it has a solution for encoding its 8K ‘Super Hi-Vision’ transmissions. Working with Mitsubishi Electric, NHK says the pair has jointly developed the world’s first rack-mounted High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) encoder and decoder for 8K transmission. HEVC itself is well on its way to being a fixed standard for the broadcasting industry, but what [...]
