Ericsson is enabling DishTv, India’s largest direct-to-home (DTH) satellite operator, to improve its satellite bandwidth efficiency, increase channel capacity and offer more choice to its subscribers in HD and SD. The head-end upgrade enables DishTv’s 7 million subscribers to enjoy new HD services. Viewers can also access new SD channels without the need to swap existing MPEG-2 set-top boxes (STBs). DishTv has selected Ericsson’s high performance EN8100 MPEG-2 and EN8190 MPEG-4 AVC encoders, and is launching a combined SD MPEG-2 and HD MPEG-4 AVC system in the same transponder space. The EN8100 and EN8190 optimize bitrates and deliver greater performance to strengthen DishTv’s business case by maximizing current bandwidth capacity.