DISH HD Asia taps Thomson to support Ultra HD, HEVC DTH service


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Editor

| 25 January 2016




Leading Asian direct-to-home (DTH) satellite pay-TV service provider DISH HD Asia has revealed that it is using Thomson Video Networks encoding equipment to power its new Ultra HD 4K and all-HEVC-HD satellite service.



DISH’s upgrade will result in the company doubling its channel capacity to deliver more than 120 channels to viewers throughout north-east Asia. It has also introduced a new Ultra HD HEVC set-top box (STB) to allow viewers to receive and HEVC HD channels.

“With this major system upgrade, we have again demonstrated our leadership in bringing the best satellite TV experience to our subscribers,” commented Bert Klein, DISH HD managing director. “They can now enjoy Ultra HD 4K and HEVC HD channels, and we have doubled our channel capacity and introduced a new Ultra HD 4K HEVC set-top box. Thomson Video Networks was our partner of choice. Not only did [it] provide superior technology, but they met our required schedules and project timeline while providing strong support to ensure our delivery was on schedule.”

At the heart of operations is Thomson ViBE VS7000 HEVC processing technology combined with the NetProcessor 9030 multiplexer/scrambler, MediaFlex suite and FUZE-1 4K playout system. As the project develops, DISH will use the Thomson technology to support advanced applications, such as ad insertion.

“With this major system upgrade, we have moved away from MPEG-4 and are now a fully HEVC satellite DTH network, enjoying significant bandwidth efficiencies and savings through the ViBE VS7000," added DISH HD director of networks and broadcast Wai Hoong Tham.

“More importantly, as a satellite service, we saw that we could only meet our requirements for 1080i and statistical multiplexing with the VS7000, which has allowed us to deliver new channels to our subscribers. It was clear that Thomson Video Networks could deliver not only the best HEVC picture quality and highest channel density, but also the optimised satellite capacity and reduced OPEX we needed.”