SES Americon-New Skies Now World Skies; Liberty Moves Sports Nets To MPEG-4 HD; Cox Expands Primetime VOD Service; ILS To Launch Eutelsat's W7
Satellite operator SES has officially changed the name of its Americom-New Skies unit to SES World Skies as part of the rebranding effort the company announced in March --- Liberty Sports Group last week made the switch to a single, digital HD feed of its three regional sports networks using Cisco's MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding transcoding platform. The three networks involved -- FSN Northwest, FSN Pittsburgh and FSN Rocky Mountain -- are now being distributed to more than 700 affiliates using the MPEG-4 standard --- Cox Communications has expanded the reach of its MyPrimetime On DEMAND service to include customers in the Las Vegas and San Diego markets. The service allows users to access a variety of first-run content from major networks via the VOD platform --- International Launch Services will launch Eutelsat Communications' W7 satellite in mid-November as part of a new mission agreement between the two companies, canceling the previous launch agreement between Eutelsat and Sea Launch. The W7 satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, will be co-located with the W4 at 36 degrees East and provide digital broadcast coverage of Russia and sub-Saharan Africa.