Satnews

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Six new Nigerian satellite channels
October 18, 2012 08.38 Europe/London By Robert Briel

SatLink Communications has announced that it has been selected by six Nigerian TV channels for a new DTH service.

SatLink will provide end-to-end broadcast services and content distribution to Central and Pan-Africa on the Amos 5 satellite Ku-band and C-Band platforms. The broadcasters will also be utilising SatLink’s end to end broadcast solutions including the company HD Playout Centre services to enable the distribution of the customer’s TV channel to suit African market dema$$$.

Utilising the Amos 5 satellite, on 17 degrees East, Central-Africa Ku-band reach, SatLink will enable two international Christian Religious Channels, Voice of God (VOG) and Champions of Fire TV (CFTV) and Hola TV, a Nigerian entertainment channel, to effectively distribute content easily to Direct to Home viewers in the Western Africa, Eastern Africa and Central Africa regions.

On the C-band beam, Hosanna Broadcast Network will contribute their Christian and entertainment programs to Pan Africa, CFTV will broadcast also on Amos 5 C-band via Satlink and Optima Sports TV will be broadcasting two terrestrial sports channels carrying premium content from the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, the FA Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga to its audience of Sub-Saharan African viewers.

Christian channel Voice of God (VOG) and Hola TV will play out and uplink their channels directly from Jerusalem to SatLink’s MCPC platforms.

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Volia promotes HD
October 18, 2012 11.47 Europe/London By Chris Dziadul

The leading Ukrainian cable operator Volia is making it easier for subscribers to receive its HD services.

As of today (October 18), it has made two new packages â€" HD set (CAM) and HD set (TV tuner) available, in each case allowing for the purchase of reception equipment in 12 monthly instalments of UAH48 (â,¬4.44) and UAH69 respectively.

After this, ownership of the equipment will pass to subscribers, who will pay the usual price of UAH40 a month to receive Volia’s HD channels.

Volia introduced the latter earlier this year and they are already available in 13 cities.

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Pirate Bay moves to the cloud


The Pirate Bay has moved its servers to the cloud to hinder authorities’ attempts to take it offline. The website will now operate from cloud-hosting providers around the world. It says the move will save money and make it harder for law-enforcement agencies to shut it down.

In 2006, police in Sweden raided The Pirate Bay, shutting down its servers. The Pirate Bay says its new cloud-based servers, do not have to be hosted with the same provider, or even on the same continent â€" making it impervious to attempts to close it down. The Pirate Bay said: “The site that you’re at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us.”

Talking to the TorrentFreak website they said: “Moving to the cloud lets us move from country to country, crossing borders seamlessly without downtime. The hosting providers have no idea that they’re hosting The Pirate Bay, and even in the event they found out it would be impossible for them to gather data on the users.”

The Pirate Bay says it will retain control of the technology â€" transit routers and load balancers â€" which allows it to distribute file-sharing requests across multiple computers, and also hide the identity of both the cloud-provider and its users.

“If the police decide to raid us again there are no servers to take, just a transit router. If they follow the trail to the next country and find the load balancer, there is just a disk-less server there. In case they find out where the cloud provider is, all they can get are encrypted disk-images.”

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Blue sky for Sky Deutschland
By Chris Forrester


News Corp’s majority stake in Sky Deutschland looks as if it is starting to pay off. The past six months have seen Sky-D’s stock price rise from a typical â,¬2 a share to today’s â,¬3.34, and ahead of the broadcaster’s Q3 results announcement due on November 14th.

A note to investors from bankers Morgan Stanley says that, in its view, pay-TV has now “broken through” in Germany and that on November 14th the broadcaster will report its second successive quarterly EBITDA profit.

As to specifics, Morgan Stanley is expecting Sky-D to add 80,000 net additions (same period last year it added 98,000), hampered by the Bundesliga season starting three weeks late this year. The bank says HDTV subs continue to grow, and it expects 100,000 net new HD subs as well as a modest rise in ARPU (from â,¬32.50, up 30c).

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Intelsat “exempt” from Iran satellite bans


Luxembourg-headquartered Intelsat continues to carry Iran’s TV channels, seemingly in direct violation of EU rules. Eutelsat took 19 Iranian TV and radio channels down earlier this week.

Intelsat’s director of corporate communications, Alex Horwitz, told BBC Monitoring that Intelsat’s situation vis a vis Iranian broadcasts was different to that of Eutelsat. “Intelsat adheres strictly to the US sanctions requirements with respect to the services it provides in Iran,” Horwitz said in a statement.

Intelsat Corporation (a wholly-owned subsidiary) holds an OFAC license to provide satellite capacity and managed services to certain named customers in Iran. Our historical obligations to serve Iran are related to our former status as an intergovernmental organisation,” Horwitz said.

OFAC refers to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency of the US Treasury Department. OFAC administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals. It also has the authority to grant exemptions to prohibited transactions.

A number of Iranian channels dropped from Eutelsat’s Hot Bird satellites can now be seen on the Intelsat 20 satellite broadcasting to Europe at 68.5 degrees east. They include Press TV in English, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2 (general programming in Farsi), Sahar 1 and 2, multilingual Quran TV, and the Arabic-language Al-Kawthar.

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Didier Drogba's Chinese Super League football coming to Eurosport
Published Thursday, Oct 18 2012, 10:12 BST | By Andrew Laughlin



Eurosport has agreed an exclusive TV rights deal to Chinese Super League, the emerging Asian football league featuring stars such as Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka.

The pan-European sports broadcaster's deal covers the remainder of the 2012 season, along with the 2013 and 2014 seasons from China.

The Chinese Super League is currently on the expansion with a fresh influx of money and famous players increasing its profile around the world.

For 2012, the league was expanded from 12 teams to 16 teams, but it was the arrival of major football stars from leading European clubs that helped it hit the headlines.

Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka left Chelsea for Shanghai Shenhua, and former Barcelona star Seydou Keita is now playing for Dalian Aerbin.

Eurosport 2 will start the live coverage of Chinese Super League on October 20 at 1.45pm CET (12.45pm GMT), when Shanghai Shenhua take on Changchun Yatai.

This will be followed by Dalian Aerbin versus Shanghai Shenhua on October 27 at 9.30am CET, and the season closer tie between Shanghai Shenhua and Qingdao on November 3 at 10am CET.

Alongside TV, live coverage of matches will be available on the internet and mobile via the Eurosport Player streaming service. This will be key for many viewers due to the time difference to China.

Eurosport 2 is fast becoming the place to watch Asian football, as Chinese Super League joins the already available coverage of Japan's J League and Asia's AFC Champions League club competition.

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4.8 E: Travel Channel switches in $$$$$$$$

published: October 18, 2012, 10:07 TODAY!

The thematic channel Travel Channel on Astra 4A (4.8 ° E) is going to change the system of conditional access. In a months from Cryptoworks system to $$$$$$$$ .

Distribution Line Travel Channel also includes Czech audio track.

Coding system will change for two reasons - for CryptoWorks e$$$ support from its owner, and the second reason is the current illegal income in the Travel Channel CryptoWorks. Go to the $$$$$$$$ solve those problems.

Travel Channel will be from 1.11.2012 to 31.12.2012 under simulcrypt coded systems $$$$$$$$ and Cryptoworks. From 1.1.2013 station operator will use only $$$$$$$$ system.

Travel Channel brings reports, documentaries about world cuisine, culture, natural resources, shopping, architecture and traditions.

Technical parameters:

* Astra 4A (4.8 ° E) freq 12.111 GHz, pol H, SR 27500, FEC 5/6, DVB-S/QPSK

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Discovery Kids available on Tata Sky in India

Louise Duffy | 18-10-2012

Discovery Kids is now available in India on DTH platform Tata Sky.

The channel's programming ranges from global content to India-themed series, and includes both animation and live action series under multiple genres such as adventure, mythology, nature, history and science.

Rahul Johri, senior VP and general manager â€" South Asia, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, said: “Discovery Kids has ushered in a new wave in kids’ entertainment in India, one which will have kids engaged and their parents satisfied. The encouraging response has reiterated our commitment to offer enhanced value to the viewers, affiliates and advertisers alike.”

Nicola Bamford, chief content and business development officer, Tata Sky, added: “We are happy to partner with MSM Discovery and enlarge the Discovery portfolio brand in India with its latest addition. Both bra$$$ deliver on the brand promise to provide a broad range of quality programming across every genre keeping in mind every member of the family. With the launch of Discovery Kids, we have further strengthened the learning based entertainment push amongst our younger audiences. We are certain the informative and entertainment quotient provided by Discovery Kids would be a perfect blend to keep children entertained in the comfort of their homes.”

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now TV launches three IPTV channels in Malaysia

Louise Duffy | 18-10-2012

Hong Kong pay-TV provider now TV has secured a deal with Telekom Malaysia to bring three Chinese-language channels to the HyppTV IPTV service - now International, now Mango and now HaiRun.

now International features cooking, lifestyle, entertainment and travel programmes; now Mango (a joint venture between now TV and Hunan Broadcasting System) features talk shows, Chinese entertainment and variety series; while now HaiRun concentrate on drama series.

The channels will be available on multiple platforms, including the internet, mobile devices and tablets.

Janice Lee, PCCW's managing director of TV and new media, said: “International expansion is one of our key strategies to further grow our business. Malaysia has one of the largest overseas Chinese populations in Southeast Asia and we are excited to have Telekom Malaysia as our first international content distribution partner.”

Jeremy Kung, executive VP of new media at Telekom Malaysia, added: “We are delighted to be working with Hong Kong’s largest pay-TV operator, now TV, in bringing the three exciting new channels exclusively to our subscribers for the first time. To date, HyppTV offers its customers 105 channels with 28 channels in HD, consisting of 19 free channels, 45 premium channels, 22 video-on-demand (VOD) genres and 19 interactive channels. This is a big milestone and a significant growth for us after starting out just two years ago with only 22 channels.

“Partnering with now TV, we not only have among the best in Asian entertainment and lifestyle content on our platform, but also one of the biggest collection of Chinese drama ever assembled on HyppTV. With these efforts, we hope to satisfy the dema$$$ of our every growing HyppTV subscribers by having more channels for them to choose from.”

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MediaCorp sells 100 hours of programming to TVB and 8TV

Louise Duffy | 18-10-2012

MediaCorp has sold more than 100 hours of programming to TVB in Hong Kong and 8TV in Malaysia.

TVB bought two seasons of celebrity travelogue My Star Guide, while 8TV bought various dramas, including A Song To Remember, Devotion, Love Thy Neighbour and Rescue 995.

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SCTE: D-Link launches MoCA bridges for home-wide HD streaming

Michelle Clancy | 19-10-2012

D-Link has launched the WECB Wireless MoCA and ECB MoCA bridges for cable operators to roll out to their connected home customers.

Launching at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, the products are designed to provide wall-to-wall connectivity throughout a home, using unused bandwidth on a home's existing coaxial wiring to deliver more throughput for HD streaming and online gaming, and streaming multimedia to wireless devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

Using a home's existing coaxial cable, Wireless MoCA bridge and MoCA bridge use Ethernet Wi-Fi to blanket an area, even hard-to-reach spots such as those with concrete walls, successive floors in multi-storied buildings or other architectural impediments could inhibit a wireless signal.

Equipped with a built-in wireless access point, the WECB MoCA Bridge also allows users to wirelessly stream photos, video and files directly to connected devices, including laptops, smartphones and tablets. In addition, both the WECB Wireless MoCA bridge and ECB MoCA bridge use separate frequencies to trasmit data and will not interrupt TV transmission.

"Committed to providing cable operators with industry-leading home networking equipment, D-Link's latest offerings are designed to meet the growing demand for a strong and reliable Internet network at every spot within the home," said Eli Gavra, senior vice president for the service provider business unit at D-Link. "By using a home's existing cable wiring, D-Link's new Wireless MoCA bridge and MoCA bridge offer wired and wireless Internet access in rooms where a single gateway router cannot reach â€" allowing customers to seamlessly stream HD videos, photos and more to the furthest corners of a home."

Both products will be available in the first quarter of 2013 via service providers.

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SCTE: Deluxe on Demand offers turn-key online streaming video catalogue for cable TV Everywhere

Michelle Clancy | 19-10-2012

Deluxe Entertainment Services Group has launched Deluxe On Demand, a video catalogue service encoded for any-device viewing, to help cable MSOs deliver the same multiscreen proposition that over-the-top (OTT) providers do.

Deluxe on Demand, on view at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Orlando, gives service providers the choice to access and through the cloud deliver its video catalogue of more than 40,000 titles. Deluxe said that thousa$$$ more titles being added each month, and that the titles span a full range of programming, films and TV.

Typically it takes a significant upfront investment in time and resources to build the network infrastructure and to create and manage new content processing workflows to deliver multiscreen digital distribution. The new product offers titles encoded in more than 50 formats, for viewing on the set-top box (MPEG2 and MPEG4), gaming consoles, smart TVs, PC/Mac, and iOS and Android mobile devices. Video titles are available pre-encrypted and pre-packaged with the most common Digital Rights Management (DRM) providers for easy integration with service providers' TV Everywhere device applications.

"Deluxe on Demand brings true innovation to the market to address the fundamental challenges service providers face to meet subscriber demand for more video to more connected devices, quickly and cost effectively," said Kevin Corbett, president of Deluxe Digital Distribution. "Our service-based approach ensures that our customers with content rights have immediate access to the largest library of high quality pre-encoded and pre-packaged video assets, with the flexibility to choose which titles they want to deliver to which devices."

Deluxe offers content creation for features, television and commercials are offered in production, post production, digital distribution, marketing services and asset management. They include EFILM and Company 3 digital intermediates; post production and subtitling services; titles design and digital VFX; Blu-ray and DVD compression, encoding and authoring; advertising distribution and syndication services; digital cinema services, motion picture film processing and printing; and 2D-to-3D conversions.

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SCTE: ARRIS launches new converged cable MSO router

Michelle Clancy | 19-10-2012

ARRIS has expanded its cable edge portfolio to include the E6000 Converged Edge Router.

The router will be on display along with ARRIS C4 and C4c CMTS platforms and its media services platform (MSP) 2802 at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, taking place 17-19 October in Orlando.

The CCAP-capable E6000 CER is a follow-on to the C4 CMTS technology, which has been shipping for more than 10 years. The new product improves density and cost-effectiveness in an integrated architecture, ARRIS said.

"We've been working with the major cable operators and CableLabs for over three years on the CCAP specifications and vision, and believe that now is the time to introduce the increased capabilities of the E6000," said Bruce McClelland, ARRIS president of products and services. "We have taken our CMTS and video processing experience and extended its hallmarks of reliability and availability into higher density applications which meet our customers' near-term broadband distribution needs."

Operators can mix and match ARRIS cable edge products to create the optimum network configuration for their own service needs. All elements of the E6000 CER are redundant, either N+1 or 1+1, and all are hot-swappable. Designed for 99.999% system availability, the E6000 CER has a self-healing architecture that maintains system services without interruption, ARRIS added.

"ARRIS has been a strong contributor to the development of next-generation access platforms such as CCAP, and we are excited to help them bring this to market," said Sam Chernak, senior vice president of access technology for Comcast Cable. "They have been a technology partner for many years, and we look forward to continuing this with the CCAP platform."

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SCTE: RADX, Xilinx, ADI collaborate on EdgeQAM for cable market

Michelle Clancy | 19-10-2012

RADX Technologies, Xilinx and Analog Devices are partnering on off-the-shelf, programmable EdgeQAM technology solutions at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Orlando. The solutions are aimed at cable TV equipment OEMs looking to develop and deploy next-generation EdgeQAM products that address cable TV operators' most demanding QAM applications â€" from hospitality to full CCAP solutions.

Based on technologies from the three partners, the EdgeQAM technology solutions enable OEMs to deploy low-cost, low-power yet advanced, programmable systems. The integrated equipment includes the 28nm Xilinx Kintex-7 and/or Virtex-7 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Analog Devices' AD9129 DACs, and FrontierEQ IP cores from RADX Technologies.

"Our collaboration with Xilinx and Analog Devices has resulted in a watershed solution for EdgeQAM system OEMs," said Ross Smith, RADX Technologies CEO and co-founder. "The FrontierEQ EdgeQAM IP cores and reference platforms fully exploit the superior capabilities of Xilinx 7 series FPGAs and Analog Devices DACs to enable OEMs of all sizes to deploy the most advanced, power-efficient and high-performance EdgeQAM solutions in the market in record time and on budget. And because the solutions are programmable, we've virtually eliminated the risks associated with supporting new standards that are inherent to fixed-function, ASIC-based solutions."

The programmability is an intrinsic feature of the solution's Xilinx FPGA-based foundation, which enables OEMs to reprogram the solution in the field or at the factory to meet evolving industry standards and/or customer requirements, offering a future-proof capability, the companies noted.

Also, the products allow OEMs to integrate electronic components into a single IC, which reduces the bill-of-material (BOM) costs and powering requirements, key industry requirements for next-generation EdgeQAM systems.

"Xilinx, together with RADX and Analog Devices, has developed production-deployable solutions for OEMs that gives them a comprehensive foundation for building scalable, low-power EdgeQAM solutions to which they can add their own differentiating IP," said Aaron Behman, senior manager for Xilinx broadcast and consumer marketing. "Cable equipment OEMs can accelerate the time-to-market for their next-generation EdgeQAMs while ensuring their products are 'future proof' and immune to changing standards and differentiated from the competition."

[Lujdzo]

SCTE: RADX, Xilinx, ADI collaborate on EdgeQAM for cable market

Michelle Clancy | 19-10-2012

RADX Technologies, Xilinx and Analog Devices are partnering on off-the-shelf, programmable EdgeQAM technology solutions at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Orlando. The solutions are aimed at cable TV equipment OEMs looking to develop and deploy next-generation EdgeQAM products that address cable TV operators' most demanding QAM applications â€" from hospitality to full CCAP solutions.

Based on technologies from the three partners, the EdgeQAM technology solutions enable OEMs to deploy low-cost, low-power yet advanced, programmable systems. The integrated equipment includes the 28nm Xilinx Kintex-7 and/or Virtex-7 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Analog Devices' AD9129 DACs, and FrontierEQ IP cores from RADX Technologies.

"Our collaboration with Xilinx and Analog Devices has resulted in a watershed solution for EdgeQAM system OEMs," said Ross Smith, RADX Technologies CEO and co-founder. "The FrontierEQ EdgeQAM IP cores and reference platforms fully exploit the superior capabilities of Xilinx 7 series FPGAs and Analog Devices DACs to enable OEMs of all sizes to deploy the most advanced, power-efficient and high-performance EdgeQAM solutions in the market in record time and on budget. And because the solutions are programmable, we've virtually eliminated the risks associated with supporting new standards that are inherent to fixed-function, ASIC-based solutions."

The programmability is an intrinsic feature of the solution's Xilinx FPGA-based foundation, which enables OEMs to reprogram the solution in the field or at the factory to meet evolving industry standards and/or customer requirements, offering a future-proof capability, the companies noted.

Also, the products allow OEMs to integrate electronic components into a single IC, which reduces the bill-of-material (BOM) costs and powering requirements, key industry requirements for next-generation EdgeQAM systems.

"Xilinx, together with RADX and Analog Devices, has developed production-deployable solutions for OEMs that gives them a comprehensive foundation for building scalable, low-power EdgeQAM solutions to which they can add their own differentiating IP," said Aaron Behman, senior manager for Xilinx broadcast and consumer marketing. "Cable equipment OEMs can accelerate the time-to-market for their next-generation EdgeQAMs while ensuring their products are 'future proof' and immune to changing standards and differentiated from the competition."