Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Almatel launches new HEVC DTH service

Cable operator Almatel Kazakhstan, has launched a new DTH platform using the HEVC video compression solution from Harmonic.

The cabler, operating under the brand name Alma TV, is using Harmonic’s software-based Electra X advanced media processing platform to deliver SD, HD and UHD channels across Kazakhstan with increased bandwidth efficiency by leveraging the HEVC video codec. Alma TV will be able to adopt new formats and codecs in the future, including 4K/UHD.

“Our subscribers demand exceptional video quality. So, when it came to finding a solution provider for video delivery, Harmonic was the clear choice based on their extensive deployment experience, technology innovation and competitive pricing,” said Eric Franke, CEO of Almatel Kazakhstan.

“Being able to deliver around 140 SD and HD channels from the same DTH platform improves efficiencies and gives us a competitive edge in the marketplace, attracting new subscribers.”

“Alma TV was smart to launch its DTH platform using the HEVC codec, which provides a 50 percent increase in bandwidth savings compared to MPEG-4,” said Ian Graham, VP of sales, EMEA and LATAM at Harmonic.

“As pay-TV operators around the world look to launch UHD offerings, having a flexible, easily upgradeable media processor like the Electra X platform, with advanced encoding technology, will be key to their success.”

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Gftk调查：UHD在德国正成趋势

More than a quarter of German TV viewers (28%) who don’t yet own an Ultra HD TV set want to buy such a device.

Seven out of ten Germans (68%) are familiar with the new TV standard. Every fifth German (21%) already owns an Ultra HD TV set. These are the results of a survey research institute GfK conducted on behalf of industry association Deutsche TV-Plattform among 1,004 people in May 2017.

Almost half of the owners of an Ultra HD TV set (44%) directly opted for the device because they wanted to buy a new TV set anyway. For 34%, the larger screen size was a key reason for the purchase, for 32% the better picture quality compared with HDTV.

TV programmes or content in Ultra HD only played an important role for 18%, reflecting the still small choice. For 12%, a good offer was the main purchase reason.

Half of the people surveyed (52%) are familiar with the term virtual reality and three out of four (76%) can imagine using virtual reality offers at least occasionally.

Around 2.6 million Ultra HD TV sets will be sold in Germany in 2017, according to industry association gfu. Together with the sales in previous years, a total of around 5.6 million Ultra HD TV sets are expected to be in German living rooms at the end of 2017.

At its ANGA COM 2017 booth MB4 in front of hall 7, Deutsche TV-Plattform will present Ultra HD content in High Dynamic Range (HDR) from Dolby, Eutelsat, Loewe and SES.

Polsat launches Grand Slam package---by broadbandtvnews.com

Poland’s Polsat has launched a new programme package named Tenis Premium in partnership with Eurosport.

Its debut coincided with the start of this year’s Roland Garos French Open tournament in Paris.

The package consists of two channels – Tenis Premium 1 and Tenis Premium 2 – and will offer full coverage of the tournament, as well as the upcoming Grand Slam Wimbledon 2017, US Open 2017 and Australian Open 2018.

The package is available to Cyfrowy Polsat and ipla subscribers for a one-off fee of PLN40 (€9.53).

It is also being made available to other cable and DTH platforms, which can offer it to their subscribers in any form they wish.

The Dutch incumbent KPN is providing the transmission service for the new package, connecting Eurosport and Polsat.

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At the beginning of 2017, the company was said to produce its own Conditional Access Nodule for Irdeto

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Finger spinner/Hand spinner

Do not understand why this like device can be that HOT.

You can find it everywhere suddenly in Hua Qiangbei----the biggest consumer electronics market in China.

Mp3 players, MP4 player, DVD players, digital photo frame, GPS Navigation, mobile phones........, anyway, Hua Qiangbei was the place related to high-tech(or maybe so called high tech sometime), BUT now, the HOT spinners is a little bit far away from high tech.

Maybe, in the near future, human beings, the major job/work will be play, eating and being cute------to be the pet of robots

Monday, April 24, 2017

Most German DTT households move to DVB-T2

The majority (51.2%) of former DVB-T users in Germany have made the move to successor system DVB-T2/HEVC and continue to receive their TV channels terrestrially.

Less than a quarter of the affected households (23.4%) have opted for other transmission infrastructures. The winner is DTH satellite reception which 11.5% of the former DVB-T households decided to use – probably because the commercial channels continue to be available free-of-charge this way. 7% signed up for a cable TV subscription, 3% opted for a streaming provider such as Zattoo, Magine TV or TV Spielfilm live and 2% became IPTV customers.

16.9% of the former DVB-T viewers now use another TV reception method available in their household, 5.5% are still evaluating the different options and 1.5% don’t watch television any more.

That’s the result of a survey market research institute TNS Infratest conducted among 200 former DVB-T users on behalf of Zattoo between April 3 and 5, 2017.

“Zattoo also benefitted from the switchover. In Q1 2017, we managed to win over 300,000 new users including 60,000 alone in the week of March 29,” said Jörg Meyer, Chief Officer Content & Consumer at Zattoo. “The growth for Zattoo increasingly takes place on the large screen. The number of hours of Zattoo usage on connected TV sets has increased by more than 40% in December 2016 alone.”

The survey also focused on the question whether the new DVB-T2 households are prepared to pay for reception of the commercial channels offered on the Freenet TV platform for €5.75 per month. 41.9% don’t want to spend money on Freenet TV. 36.2% are willing to pay, further 20% possibly.

On March 31, 2017, around 160,000 households were already signed up for Freenet TV despite the fee-based period not starting until July 1. Freenet TV expects to reach more than one million paying customers by the end of 2018.

Ericsson and Inspur bring next-gen pay TV to China

MediaFirst brings next-gen pay TV to China

Inspur and Ericsson forge multi-year strategic partnership to deliver next-generation TV services to China, the world’s largest pay TV market
Shandong Cable Network will be the first operator to benefit from the collaboration and offer an unparalleled, personalized TV experience to its 20 million subscribers
The companies will develop a leading-edge, open, intelligent, and agile cloud-enabled TV platform for operators based on Ericsson’s MediaFirst solution suite

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Inspur Software Group, a leading cloud computing and big data service provider, have forged a multi-year strategic partnership to deliver innovative TV services at web speed to China, the largest pay TV market in the world.

Ericsson and Inspur will collaborate to develop a best-of-breed, cloud-enabled TV platform for operators in the burgeoning Chinese market using Ericsson’s award-winning end-to-end MediaFirst solution suite.

Shandong Cable Network, the largest operator in the Asia Pacific region and one of the largest in the world, will be the first to deploy the new TV platform in China. The new service will deliver live and on-demand TV content to 20 million subscribers in 17 cities across the Shandong Province.

Elisabetta Romano, Vice President and Head of Media Solutions, Ericsson, says: “Now, more than ever, consumers want and expect TV on their terms. A personalized, multi-screen offering is considered table-stakes for operators who want to succeed in a marketplace like China, which is home to 245 million subscribers. Together with Inspur, we see a huge opportunity to help operators to unlock this fiercely competitive market, maximize the value of their networks and transform their businesses by providing a relevant, next-generation viewing experience in the fastest way. The agreement with Shandong Cable Network further strengthens our position as leading innovators in TV and media and trusted partners in China.”

Cui Wei, Head of Digital, Business Unit Media at Inspur, says: “Ericsson is a long-established and trusted partner of Inspur. Ericsson’s global scale and expertise, and award-winning MediaFirst solution suite is a great fit for our extensive portfolio, capabilities, and local know-how. Our aim is to serve the Chinese market and empower operators by offering a transformative multi-screen TV solution that offers flexibility, scalability and agility to adapt to consumers’ changing needs; advanced analytics tools to increase revenue opportunities and reduce churn; and a world-class delivery and service model that enhances service velocity.”

Huang Ping, CTO, Shandong Cable Network says: “Our customers have access to an unprecedented amount of choice and content through their mobile devices. The increasing demand for round-the-clock, personalized video services that are easy to discover, engage with and enjoy is at an all-time high. We needed an intelligent, market relevant solution that can enable web speed transformation and cutting-edge innovations and help us to stay ahead of the curve in China’s dynamic TV market. Ericsson and Inspur meet these needs and will provide us with a world-class TV platform to deliver the next-generation TV experiences that our subscribers want and deserve.”

As part of the agreement, Inspur will integrate Ericsson’s end-to-end MediaFirst solution suite within its media portfolio. It will deploy Ericsson MediaFirst TV Platform on Inspur’s advanced set top box and home gateway solution, and Ericsson MediaFirst Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP) on Inspur’s market leading hardware solution. This will enable Inspur and Ericsson to deliver cost-effective, high performance solutions to customers that leverages both companies’ best-of-breed software and hardware. Ericsson and Inspur also intend to roll out additional TV and media solutions to operators across China in the future.

Ericsson MediaFirst TV Platform is a software-defined, next-generation, cloud-based TV platform that provides a converged multiscreen experience including Pay TV in-home, TV Everywhere and OTT services. It embraces all content sources and delivery networks. Underpinned by Ericsson’s DevOps approach, the platform offers flexibility, scalability and agility to adapt to consumers’ constantly evolving behaviors and needs.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Germany DVB-T2 PC Dongle, designed & made by SMIT

German transmitter network operator Media Broadcast will make the USB TV stick for reception of the next-generation DVB-T2/HEVC-based DTT platform including the encrypted Freenet TV service available from retailers and www.freenet.tv from March 23, 2017.

This was announced by Klaus Steffens, director of Freenet TV technology at Media Broadcast, during a press conference. The German DVB-T2 platform will launch with around 40 public and commercial TV channels on March 29, 2017.

Compared with cable, satellite and IPTV, mobile and portable reception, for example on the balcony, on a campsite or in the car, is one of the key benefits of terrestrial broadcast technology, in Steffens’ view. No data volume is used up as no mobile network is being used. The USB TV stick will be available for PCs, laptops and Mac computers at a recommended consumer retail price of €59.99.

The USB 2.0-based dongle will bring the DVB-T2 TV channels, an electronic programme guide (EPG), teletext and subtitles to the screen. In mid-2017, OTT channels using IP streaming will be added. Further new features to be included at a later stage are time-shifted television and a TV recording function, according to Steffens.

Freenet TV will be available at no charge for 1 month with the USB TV stick, afterwards it will cost the standard fee of €69 per year. This will be a separate subscription. Viewers already holding a Freenet TV subscription for the TV set won’t be able to also use it for the USB TV stick.

The stick will not be paired with the hardware, hence it can be used with different computers and laptops. Freenet TV can’t yet be received on smartphones and tablets, but solutions for mobile devices are being looked into.

Kerstin Köder, Head of Freenet TV at Media Broadcast, announced two further channels launching on the Freenet TV platform: German entertainment channel Tele 5 and news channel N24. In total, 17 of the 20 commercial channels to be aboard are now known. This includes the free-to-air channels of the two large TV groups RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 as well as Sport1, DMAX and Eurosport 1. All channels will be offered in Full HD resolution and thereby in higher quality than on cable, satellite and IPTV. The DVB-T2 line-up will also include Bibel TV and QVC offered unencrypted and around 20 also unencrypted channels from the public broadcasters in Full HD format.

Reception of Freenet TV on the TV set will cost €69 per year with the first three months offered at no charge. The fee applies to each reception device. Collective family or household subscriptions won’t be offered at launch, said Köder, but such options are being evaluated.

Internet-based add-on service Freenet TV Connect will launch alongside Freenet TV on March 29, 2017; its predecessor Multithek will be closed in return. The OTT service will bring further TV channels onto the TV screens of DVB-T2 households integrated into the channel listing together with the terrestrial channels. The line-up will comprise, for example, Spiegel TV, Euronews, Bloomberg TV, CNN, France 24, NHK World, eoTV, rheinmaintv, QVC plus and 1-2-3.tv. A Freenet TV subscription will not be required to receive the IP streaming channels.

Freenet TV Connect will include a personalised start screen on which viewers can place their favourite content for quick accessibility. The integrated EPG will provide programme details and the possibility to directly tune into the TV channels. Through a collaboration with Radioplayer.de, Freenet TV Connect will also offer more than 600 radio stations. The portfolio will also feature catch-up services and apps.

For usage, viewers need a HbbTV 1.5-compliant smart TV set with integrated DVB-T2/Freenet TV reception or a Freenet TV set-top-box carrying the Freenet TV Connect logo. The internet connection should have a minimum bandwidth of 3Mbps.

Freenet TV Connect will in future also be able to host subscription services such as pay-TV or video-on-demand with the technical preparations being underway, said Steffens, adding that the hybrid streaming service will also provide the pathway for Ultra HD/4K content to reach DVB-T2 households in future.

DVB-T2 will be rolled out in the night from 28 to 29 March 2017 across a total of 70 transmitter sites, 44 of them also offering Freenet TV, explained Steffens. In this so-called Magic Night more than 200 technicians from Media Broadcast will be on site at the locations. The deployment will continue: By 2018, Freenet TV is scheduled to be available on 61 transmitter sites, reaching 80% of the German population.

Media Broadcast will accompany the DVB-T2 rollout throughout the night in a blog, reporting live which transmitters sites are currently being converted. Viewers are recommended to conduct a channel search on their DVB-T2 reception device the next day to access the new channels.