Starz Entertainment Employs Motorola's HD Encoding

Starz Entertainment will utilize a Motorola four-channel, high-definition (HD) MPEG encoding system for the upcoming launch of its new HD channels -- Starz Comedy, Starz Edge and Starz Kids & Family.



The new HD system compresses, encrypts, and modulates the HD signals. within a single integrated transmission system. It is configured for STARZ using Motorola's Modular Uplink System which will support Starz's planned future migration to MPEG-4 compression technology.



Motorola said its MPEG-4 AVC technology handles both 1920 x 1080I and 1280 x 720P resolutions at approximately half the bandwidth required with similar MPEG-2 coded signals.



A key component of the enhanced content delivery chain is Motorola's new DSR4410MD multi-program demodulator/decryptor. The new 1 RU product receives DVB-S2 modulated signals and decrypts up to 64 services from a single MPEG-2 transport stream. Testing with STARZ signals has shown reliable transmission at 77.5 Mbps using a 36 MHz, C-Band transponder -- which translates into four- to-five MPEG-2 HD streams or as many as 10 MPEG-4/AVC HD streams.

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