The Channel | 2003 | September

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Spanish-speaking Latin America.
The loss of its key tenant would be
as much a blow to national pride
as the bank balances.
Fiscal concerns are very much in
the mind of Digital+, which has its
minds on the profits its
predecessors were never able to
achieve. According to the Spanish
newspaper Expansion most of the
contracts between Hispasat lapses
in the last quarter of this year. Even
a renewal would not necessarily be
binding because the original
commitment was made by
Telefonica itself rather than its digital
platform. The Astra contract still
has five years to run and
cancellation would result in Digital+
being liable for €300 million
compensation to SES-Astra.
700,000 subscribers currently
receive the Hispasat signal,
compared to the 1.5 million who
tune in through the Astra satellites,
a simple decision one might think,
particularly when the estimated
€100 million cost of repositioning
the dishes from Astra to Hispasat
is taken into consideration.
Spain is not the only country where
the merger of two satellite platforms
has led to a potential reduction in
the amount of satellite capacity
taken by a platform operator. The
launch of Sky Italia, though the
merger of Tele+ with Stream and
subsequent takeover by News
Corp, was less hazardous because
both operators were positioned on
the Eutelsat Hotbird. Poland’s
struggling pay-TV market still has
two platforms competing, but the
folding of Wizja TV into Cyfra+ was
relatively straightforward, if only due
to the few subscribers held by the
UPC-owned platform Wizja before
the merger.
Even if the satellites are as one
there are still additional costs that
can rack up for the operators. The
obvious cost is encryption. Not just
the system itself, but also the
recommended card replacement,
as the technology providers
attempt to keep at least one step
ahead of the hackers. A recently
merged broadcaster might
consider running two encryption
systems side by side in a process
known as Simulcrypt. This saves
the broadcaster from having to
transmit the same set of pictures
more than once, but will add to the
amount of bandwidth needed for
each channel, putting more
pressure on costs.
Cyfra+ still runs two encryption
systems more than two years after
its merger, carrying the
Cryptoworks system it inherited
from Wizja, alongside its own
MediaGuard system. Sky Italia
finds itself running three encryption
systems, Irdeto, MediaGuard and
Videoguard, the result of previous
ownership structures within the
Italian market. Whatever the
technical advantages of one
system over another, platform
operators will inevitably go with the
system over which they hold some
financial control. In the past new
channels have been made available
only to subscribers with a particular
technical set-up.
With all these encryption systems
taking up capacity it may be time
to look at statistical multiplexing.
Today the majority of satellite
broadcasters use the technology,
which has also found its way into
contribution feeds with as many as
five channels included. According
to Tandberg Television encoder
product manager Philip Bird
multiplexes can carry up to 16
channels providing greater
Interesting viewing on channel 9874
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