GlobeCast has reached a deal with French wireless provider Orange to deliver high-quality MPEG-4 TV broadcasts to its mobile TV subscribers in France. GlobeCast has already upgraded its Orange-dedicated headend at its Paris technical operations center and is currently testing it in anticipation of the launch, the date of which it has not disclosed.
GlobeCast will deliver the broadcasts using an Envivio mobile TV headend comprised of the latter's 4Caster M2 encoders and 4Manager network management system. The H.263/H.264 specifications of the headend allow GlobeCast to provide Orange with live television and radio services to any mobile device, from GPRS to HSDPA, in its subscriber network.
For GlobeCast, this represents an essential upgrade of its Orange-dedicated headend, which will allow the 61 television and 16 radio channels currently delivered by the service provider to be distributed in a high-quality, low bit rate format. Subscribers to Orange's mobile TV services will benefit from an improvement in picture quality and quality of service. The multirate, multistandard Envivio encoders output eight simultaneous profiles from a single video input, allowing Orange a greater interoperability among a wide variety of handsets, with multiple profiles generated from one input.
GlobeCast currently manages the aggregation and delivery of 100 television and radio channels for Orange subscribers in France, the UK and Switzerland. It has made a major push to provide these kinds of services specifically for mobile television applications.
For more information, visit www.globecast.com.
