Skip to Content

Get the latest Age of Conan news and views at Massively!
AOL Tech

Posts with tag MPEG4

IP-PRIME adds HD service to 12 telephone companies

by Richard Lawler, posted Apr 20th 2008 at 4:22PM

SES Americom (not letting one bad satellite get them down) has apparently found an even dozen takers for it's IP-PRIME HD-4 services, designed to add inexpensively MPEG-4 compressed HDTV to MPEG-2 IPTV providers. Not all of them were named, but Chibardun Telephone Cooperative in Wisconsin, Home Town Cable in Florida and Manti Telephone in Utah are among those soon to bask in the beauty of 32 HD including ESPN, Disney, Discovery, CNN, Fox News, MTV and others. So, if you get your TV from your phone company and haven't been getting HD yet, give them a call and see if a new set-top box in your future.

Sun Direct TV brings MPEG-4 satellite service to India

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 20th 2008 at 2:35AM


While DirecTV rolls out plans to migrate some of its customers to MPEG-4, Sun Direct TV is giving around 40 million homes in southern India such service right now. By incorporating Harmonic's video delivery solutions, it has become the first carrier in India to offer up MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) direct-to-home broadcast service. As it stands, 120 standard-definition channels are currently available to subscribers, but the operator is planning to add an undisclosed amount of HD channels "in the near future."

Bresnan talks 50 HD channels by end of year

by Steven Kim, posted Feb 25th 2008 at 1:40PM

Bresnan CommunicationsIn the linked interview, Bresnan Communications' VP of strategic engineering, Pragash Pillai, doubles the company's earlier HD channel plans for 2008, moving the mark up to 50. He also indicates that figure does not include the couple hundred hours of HD VOD (video on demand) that's also planned for the year. The tech plans detailed by Pillai are interesting: Besnan has about 96-percent of its systems at 750 MHz and above, and will be moving to 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) to get the most out of its bandwidth. In the end, he expects 2.5 HD channels per 6 MHz QAM channel. Looking to 2009, he also expects to see rollout of MPEG4 to homes as necessary. This kind of long-term planning is encouraging to see, especially from a smaller player -- infrastructure improvements are costly, and only companies that see the HD future will be prepared to keep growing their offerings and feeding our appetite.

DirecTV launches MPEG4 locals in Butte-Bozeman, Montana

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 2nd 2008 at 11:47PM

Under a month after DirecTV announced that it would be migrating West Coast locals to MPEG4, the satellite provider is rolling out locals for the first time (in SD only for now, it seems) in Butte-Bozeman, Montana. Aside from giving residents of the area and visitors of beautiful Big Sky Resort a taste of KWYB / ABC, KBZK / CBS, The CW, KBTZ / FOX/ MNT, KTVM / NBC and KUSM / PBS, DirecTV also makes sure to point out that reception of said stations requires "MPEG4 equipment and a 5LNB satellite dish." So, the countdown to HD locals begins now, eh?

DirecTV migrating West Coast locals to MPEG4 only

by Darren Murph, posted Jan 17th 2008 at 11:20AM

Shortly after getting word that Palm Springs, California residents can now look forward to getting their locals via DirecTV (if only in MPEG4 SD, for now), it seems that the satellite provider is urging all West Coast residents to make the switch to MPEG4. According to a note received by DBSTalk's Chris Blount, "customers with HD DNS channels will start to see crawls," which will purportedly encourage them to contact DirecTV in order to arrange for a 5 LNB dish and an MPEG4 HD receiver. Furthermore, we're also told that the new lineup will consist of CBSWHD on channel 391, NBCWHD on 393, ABCWHD on 397 and FOXWHD on 399. For whatever it's worth, the message will supposedly only reach those "in the Western half of the US" for now, but who knows when said alert will make its way east.

[Thanks, Earl]

Motorola's new lineup of MPEG4 HD STBs

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jan 3rd 2008 at 1:13PM

Motorola DCX3400
Moto's VP was just saying that MPEG4 would take over cable too, and so it begins with its first MPEG4 STB. This new lineup of cable set-top boxes will have all the bells and whistles including; MPEG2, MPEG4, OCAP, CableCARD, MoCA and most interestingly Dolby Digital Plus -- you know the new codec commonly used on HD DVDs. We can see where this is headed already, first we'll see these new boxes in the wild and before you know it new channels will require the latest hardware -- sound familiar? It should, it's how the satellite providers did it. In the long run this will help cable bring us more HD, but considering cable co's are footing the bill for all these boxes, we'd suspect the MPEG4 rollout will take much much longer than it did for either DirecTV or Dish.

[Via Mediaexperiences2go.com]

DirecTV 10 is online, but still no new HD channels

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Sep 22nd 2007 at 8:10PM


The 19th has come and gone and there still aren't any new HD channels on DirecTV. They've even updated their HD website indicating October is the month to expect more HD -- that's not stopping us from checking for new channels vigorously. It's not all bad news, as DirecTV 10 is transmitting a few HD test channels, which are not only encouraging, but also gives us the opportunity to ensure our setup is ready whenever DirecTV 10 is. Of course you need an MPEG4 STB, Ka/Ku dish, but you also need a b-band converter. It might be worth it to check out the test channels for yourself, as some are just now realizing they have a bad b-band converter or incompatible multi-switch. To help discover your exact problem tune to channel 498, 480 and 481 -- check out the pics after the jump to know what to expect -- and if you can't see what we see, then head over to DBSTalk.com for some help.

Continue reading DirecTV 10 is online, but still no new HD channels

DirecTV's HR21 pro gets official

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Sep 7th 2007 at 12:15PM

DirecTV HR21-200
DirecTV's new hardware rollout has been in the making for some time and now the latest addition to the lineup has been officially unveiled at CEDIA. The HR21-200 was leaked last week, and we've seen prototypes at other shows, but now the prosumer DVR will finally go into production around the end of October and offers some nice features for custom installers -- or anyone who's serious about their home theater -- like being rack mountable without a Middle Atlantic shelf, having a built in fiber HDMI port for long runs, or double the storage capacity of the HR20 (about 100 hours of MPEG-4 HD). In fact, the only downside seems to be the omission of OTA tuners, which is a non-issue if DirecTV HD locals are available in your area, but that can be a drag until DirecTV adds all the HD locals in every market.

Starz is also switching to MPEG4 with help from Motorola

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Aug 31st 2007 at 5:11PM

Starz & Motorola
Anytime it's possible to reduce the about of bandwidth required without reducing the picture quality, we're for it. MPEG4 is finally rolling along and getting picked up where it works, and one of the places it works is with cable channels like HBO and Starz. This is even more true when they're delivered with MPEG4 by the provider, 'cause as great as MPEG4 is, if the signal started out as MPEG2, then it can only get worse in the conversion process. So with some help from Motorola MPEG4 encoders, Starz is joining HBO in distributing their feeds as MPEG4 and saving providers bandwidth in the process.

Are you ready for DirecTV's new HD channels?

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Aug 11th 2007 at 9:46PM

DirecTV BBCIt appears that DirecTV is mailing letters to their customers to let them know that just because they have the latest HD dish, multi-switch and HD receiver, it doesn't mean they're ready to receive the new HD channels this fall. The possible missing piece is included with every MPEG4 capable HD receiver, but not usually installed. It is that little box called the BBC, (B-Band Converter) that must be wired in-line between the dish and the STB and is not currently needed, but will be if you want to enjoy all the HD goodness that will start beaming down from DirecTV 10 sometime next month. If you haven't thrown it away yet, go ahead and get it connected, otherwise call 1-800-DirecTV and say B-Band at the prompt to receive another one for free.


Thanks Carl!

DirecTV 10 to launch tonight at 8:30EDT

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jul 6th 2007 at 2:31PM

DirecTV 10
Never before have we seen such an anticipated satellite launch. The DirecTV 10 launch is different because it's the first step for DirecTV to fulfill their unbelievable claims. So if you can't get enough of this stuff, follow the read links to the discussion, or join the a live chat. Also, the launch will be televised on channel 570 via DirecTV. We don't know about anyone else, but we'll have our fingers crossed that everything goes as planned and DirecTV will stay on schedule to make this baby operational on September 15th.

Read -- Satelliteguys.us
Read -- DBSTalk.com

DirecTV 10 to be delayed till July

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jun 1st 2007 at 10:05AM Breaking News

DirecTV HDWhile we were all hoping that DirecTV's latest satellite named DirecTV-10 would go off without a hitch on June 20th and bring all those HD channels they've been promising, but I guess we're not that lucky. It looks like the rocket is ready to go, but the bird was not delivered on time. At this point, they are shooting for July (6th?), but haven't said exactly when yet, we don't know about everyone else, but we will feel much better when this thing is in orbit and beaming HD goodness to everyone.

DirecTV's newest satellite set to launch on June 20th

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted May 11th 2007 at 10:15AM

DirecTV HD PackageDirecTV has done a great job of reminding everyone how many HD channels they will be adding this year, but for whatever reason they don't say exactly when or how. Sure most Engadget HD readers know that the current MPEG4 satellites in service are specifically designed to spot beam HD locals, and it would be a waste to transmit national HD channels. DirecTV's priorities aside, now that DirecTV is providing HD locals all over the US, it is finally time to launch two new DirecTV satellites that are specifically designed for national HD channels. The first of which is DirecTV 10 and seems to be scheduled for a Russian launch on June 20th. If everything goes well, it will be operational in time for those new HD channels due in September.

The Engadget HD Interview: DirecTV's CTO RE: HD Lite

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jan 11th 2007 at 3:36AM Featured Story

Rômulo PontualAfter we finished covering the DirecTV press conference, we had a chance to catch up with Rômulo Pontual the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of DirecTV and ask him some questions about HD Lite and DirecTV's HD locals distribution methods. We were very surprised that he would answer our questions considering the current pending lawsuit against DirecTV for HD Lite.

Have you ever heard of the term HD Lite?
Yeah.

What do you think of that term?
I don't know what it means.

Continue reading The Engadget HD Interview: DirecTV's CTO RE: HD Lite

Euro1080 to implement DTS HDTV over satellite

by Erik Hanson, posted Jan 8th 2007 at 2:37PM

DTS logoEuropean satellite operator Euro1080 announced plans to implement DTS-encoded audio streams into their recently-launched MPEG-4 satellite feeds. Enabling the 5.1-channel audio format broadcast is tech from Coding Technologies, which will put the DTS signal inside the aacPlus feed that will be broadcast along with HDTV picture to Europeans who subscribe to Euro1080 satellite. New set-top boxes to decode the MPEG-4 content are also to be released by electronics manufacturers. American ATSC standards only allow for competitor Dolby Digital's multichannel audio to be encoded, but DTS audio can be found in standard and high-def DVDs




Weblogs, Inc. Network

AOL News

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

Joystiq
Download Squad
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
BloggingStocks
Xbox 360 Fanboy
Autoblog
Big Download Blog
AOL Sports Blog