Dish delivers MPEG-4
Satellite TV company Dish Network has started using the MPEG-4 format to support both standard-def and high-def programming. Dish follows a move some some telco IPTV providers already made, but which other telcos, cable TV operators and satellite firms have yet to initiate. Most notably, Dish's main satellite competition, FirecTV has not made the move to MPEG-4 yet.
New Dish HD customers in the eastern U.S. will be the first target group for the MPEG-4 service. As HD programming continues to find a larger market, and service providers continue to one-up one another to deliver the most HD channels, the bandwidth required for those offerings is likely to set the pace for the broader MPEG-4 format as well.
For more:
- see this coverage at Light Reading's Cable Digital News
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Comments (2) | Post a comment
Comments
Posted by Davis Freeberg | August 28, 2008 - 12:35pm
Given how long Mpeg4 has been out there, I'm, surprised that it's taken them this long to move away from the MPEG2 standard. Do you know of any reason why they aren't making the full jump to H.264? The chips for their set top box would probably cost more, but it would seem to me that they could save even more bandwidth and that the cost of the chips would go down over time while the bandwidth savings would grow. Are there technical reasons why Mpeg4 is preferable?
Posted by Keith Wehmeyer | September 2, 2008 - 2:17pm
Where did the author get his information? DIRECTV has been broadcasting MPEG-4 for some time, as has been reported in numerous publications. DIRECTV set-tops have been able to support MPEG-4 since the H20/21 and the HR20/21. See DIRECTV's own press releases (as recently as July 28th) for details.
