Kicking cable's digital transition into high gear, SES AMERICOM and Comcast Media Center (CMC) announced the latest of several joint marketing and services agreements that focus on providing centralized solutions to support the cable industry's delivery of advanced services offerings, such as HD, VOD, and VoIP.
Under a joint marketing agreement, the two companies are developing a digital transport service that utilizes SES AMERICOM's AMC-4 satellite to distribute digital formats of the most widely distributed cable channels to cable systems offering all-digital video services to their customers. These services together with CMC's HITS (Headend In The Sky) digital overlay platform provide operators with a total digital solution that minimizes the investment at the cable headend.
Earlier this spring the two companies combined forces to offer a comprehensive package of HDTV production, origination and transmission services. The HD joint offering, which utilizes SES AMERICOM's HD-PRIME, the industry's only two-satellite HD cable neighborhood (AMC-10 and AMC-11 C-band satellites at 135 and 131 degrees west, respectively), is designed to foster the development of HD content for the rapidly growing HDTV market in the U.S.
With the newest joint offering, SES AMERICOM combines the bandwidth of three satellites, AMC-4, AMC-10 and AMC-1, to form an arsenal of versatile satellite resources for the deployment of the combined offerings by the two companies. CMC will continue to support the industry with its content origination, transmission, headend authorization and 24/7 field support services.
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