Advanced Television

SES: ‘Satellite vital to success of future video landscape’

June 21, 2016

SES considers satellite vital to the success of the future video landscape and provides the answer to delivering high quality video, anywhere, and to any device. This solution is detailed in the new SES White Paper – Satellite Captures the Wave of Video Growth – published at its Investor Days event.  The White Paper details SES’s strategy in video, and champions using a hybrid network to meet the high-quality video demands of today’s viewing public.

SES looks towards the future, addressing the RR Media acquisition in the White Paper. RR Media, based in Tel Aviv, is a digital media services company. Earlier in 2016, SES announced its intent to merge RR Media with SPS, SES’s media services subsidiary. “The new company will support over 900 customers, 440 playout channels, 1,000 TV channels, and over 100 VoD platforms including Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and Hulu,” SES writes. “Technical infrastructure such as data centres, playouts, and teleports will be managed across the globe.”

SES goes further to consider the changing viewing behaviours globally, and details the value of a hybrid satellite/terrestrial network in this landscape. “Delivering one HD movie via terrestrial broadband to 2,500,000 viewers could cost thousands of euros. This compares to around €10 to deliver one HD movie over satellite to a countless number of viewers, limited only by the boundaries of the satellite footprint,” the White Paper explains. “This demand for quality and the delivery methods it requires is a key factor that makes satellite vital to the success of the future video landscape.”

A separate White Paper on the future of satellite service – Satellite Evolution Sparks a Service Revolution – focuses on the upcoming customer applications of new satellite technology, including Digital Signal Processing, satellite modularity, and satellite life extension services.

“The next generation of satellites will be flexible and adaptive, providing an improved customer experience,” the White Paper states. “The new satellites will be able to transmit thousands of Gigabits per second, multiplying on-board traffic by one or more orders of magnitude. Even further, the new satellites will operate simultaneously in broadcast and unicast mode, allowing data and video service to converge.”

“The vertical focus and the global size of SES are the key traits that allow it to look at distinct and dynamic markets through the future lens of technical innovation,” the White Paper concludes. “In all areas SES tunes its approach to focus on creating solutions that meet specific needs and have a global scalability. Applied with intelligence and precision, space innovations transcend market boundaries, push product developments, unleash unknown business possibilities, and ferment new markets. This is how SES is able to project products and solutions that have not existed before, and provide services many have not even dared to dream of.”

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Broadcast, DTH/Satellite, Satellite, Services