TelcoTV: SES Launches HD Upgrade for Early TV Deployers

Satellite operator SES Americom and video gear maker Entone Inc. announced at the TelcoTV show an overlay service that helps telcos with standard definition TV deployments add HD content to their offerings.

Fresh of the launch of its IP-Prime managed turnkey IPTV package for Tier 2 and Tier 3 telcos looking to enter the TV market, SES Americom has found a way to take a subset of the package, with Entone’s IP home gateways, and package it for those wanting HD with their TV.

SES Americom said the capital expenditure investment is a fraction of the build-out costs a telco would incur doing it themselves.

“They save big by just getting the HD from us, while continuing to use their investment in middleware and conditional access systems,” said Walt Davis, IP product management director for SES Americom. “It’s a way to transition from MPEG-2 encoding to MPEG-4 without buying special devices for HD.”

SES Americom’s IP-Prime service already includes HD channels and the enabling/optimizing MPEG-4 encoding products and technology that enable telcos to offer HD, and with more bandwidth-efficient means.

“We already offer 28 different HD channels now and double that in the next 3-6 months,” said Davis.

Entone CEO Steve McKay said the HD overlay offering, dubbed IP-Prime HD 4, will be marketed to his company’s approximately 35 customers in the United States, most of which have deployed MPEG-2 technology and products for their TV offerings.

Entone’s Hydra home gateways obviate the need for set-top boxes.

By equipping their headends with a single rack of HD-4 equipment, telcos can offer HD TV within 30 days, deliver a robust HD program lineup, and create new HD retail packages for customers, without starting over or a service interruption.

SES Americom Inc. www.ses-americom.com
Entone Inc. www.entone.com

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines