THE successful migration to the advanced Mpeg-4 format will enable My TV to compress its channel transmission and be able to increase the number of channels to more than 50, says Strong Technologies Zambia managing director Lloyd Ngoma. Mpeg-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It absorbs many of the features of Mpeg-1 and Mpeg-2 and other related standards but it has enhanced features that provide improved coding efficiency and ability to encode mixed media data such as video, audio and speech. Mpeg-4, which is efficient across a variety of bit-rates ranging from a few kilobits per second to tens of megabits per second, also provide error resilience to enable robust transmission and has the ability to interact with the audio-visual scene generated at the receiver. In an interview in Lusaka, Ngoma said My TV completed its migration to Mpeg-4 transmission format on July 1, 2013 after seven years of operations in Mpeg-2 broadcast format. "We are happy to announce here that due to our resilience, commitment and hard work, we have been receiving a lot of offers for content from production houses worldwide but due to space constraint on the satellite, we have been unable to take these on board," Ngoma said. "This is what compelled us to migrate to this enhanced Mpeg-4 feature format that will enable us compress our channel transmission and be able to increase the number of channels." He said My TV has grown the number of channels from seven in 2006 to 21 at the beginning of 2012 and added two maiden channels in Mpeg-4 in the second quarter of 2012. "The migration has come with its own challenges because we have to upgrade our over 20,000 active subscribers using the older version Mpeg-2 decoders with the superior and more feature enhanced Mpeg-4 decoders," Ngoma said. "This new decoder has added features such as 3D broadcast compatibility, Ethernet, HD and can also be used to view movies via you tube. This decoder normally cost over K550.00 but we have subsidised it to cost only K270.00 for all our loyal active subscribers that have been active for three months consecutively." He said My TV has extended registration of clients that would move to the new format to July 31. "Due to delays in shipping in of these advanced decoders from our factories abroad, we have decided to extend registration of clients that may wish to take advantage of this rebate to position themselves ready for blockbuster channels we have lined up to welcome them to our new world of Mpeg-4," said Ngoma.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 08:25:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015