MPEG-4 HD SatSatisfaction Via Crawford Satellite Services

January 15, 2008

Crawford Satellite Services and one of the largest broadcast facilities in the United States have launched an MPEG-4 HD (high definition) platform on SES AMERICOM’s satellite AMC-18 for domestic distribution into cable and DBS (digital broadcast system) providers. This platform, using the latest technology, offers bandwidth efficient distribution and transport for programmers. With its HD launch on December 31, 2007, cable television network Tennis Channel used Crawford’s MPEG-4 service to allow satellite partner DIRECTV to access the signal. “Because of the tight time frame and quick turnaround necessary to get our HD distribution system in place, we needed to work with someone with Crawford’s level of experience and expertise,” said Keith Manasco, Vice President of Operations for the Tennis Channel. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the result. Through their efforts, millions of television viewers are enjoying tournament tennis in HD right now.” Crawford has selected Motorola’s MCPC (multiple channel per carrier) MPEG-4 HD platform with redundant encoding and multiplexing (mux) as its video compression system. With this state-of-the-art equipment, the company is able to employ DVB S2 advanced modulation and MPEG-4 compression technology which better utilizes satellite bandwidth. DVB S2 allows for the distribution of a greater number of channels on a single transponder. The MPEG-4 technology compresses an HD channel so that it uses less than half of the bandwidth required, as compared to an MPEG-2 HD signal. The result of the combined technologies gives Crawford the capacity to deliver seven to eight HD channels per transponder while maintaining outstanding HD quality—Atlanta, Georgia