IBC 2007 – AMSTERDAM. During a press briefing at IBC, Canal Digitaal’s COO Kees Färber said the company plans to introduce push-VOD services sometime next year. The move is part of the plan to develop the Astra 3 position at 23.5 degrees East into a second DTH slot for the Dutch and Flemish markets. (See our earlier report here).
The company also announced it has chosen a new Philips satellite HD receiver in two versions, with or without a 160GB PVR. Canal Digitaal will use NagraGuide, OpenTV Core2 and OpenTV PVR2 to launch the new services. Until now, an old version of MediaHighway has been used. For legacy receivers, the operator will update the look and feel of the current EPG, which still has the old ‘Canal+’ look.
Harmonic and Canal Digitaal also announced the operator has implemented three Harmonic compression systems and distributed statistical multiplexing for MPEG4 SD, MPEG 4 HD and MPEG 2 SD services.
Canal Digitaal operates two DTH services, Canal Digitaal in The Netherlands and TV Vlaanderen in the northern part of Belgium, with a number of bouquets and premium tiers. Although there are no names yet for the upcoming HD and thematic bouquets, further announcements are expected in October.
