Thailand has a pay-TV penetration of 30 million and it has a multichannel TV penetration of 66%. New TV platforms have evolved through the years and Thailand currently, has a new digital platform that caters to millions of viewers and encompasses all digital terrestrial television channels in high definition too. Thailand’s Next Step direct-tohome Freeview HD platform has deployed multiple Cinegy Air PRO Bundles, a comprehensive, IP-based software suite for automated SD, HD and/or Ultra HD (4K) playout for their multichannel playout offering.

It launched its free-to-air HD platform in late 2015, and has grown exponentially since, with the potential to provide HD programming to approximately 67 million people throughout the country. Supplied and supported by Bangkokbased Cinegy partner C.S. Innovation Technology, the addition of multiple Cinegy Air PRO Bundles vastly simplifies the ability of Freeview HD to deliver an increasing number of HD channels effortlessly and inexpensively. In addition to multichannel playout capabilities, the Cinegy Air PRO Bundle provide Dolby Digital encoding, EAS, watermarking and Cinegy Type channel branding in a single, software solution. Cinegy Air PRO Bundle also supports high frame rate Ultra HD formats (50/60p), includes integrated HEVC stream encoding, and the ability to offload HEVC and H.264 stream encoding to an NVidia GPU. Key developments Thaicom PLC and V-Nova Ltd show UHD distribution of premium sports over satellite at a breakthrough low data rate to enable operators to offer cost effective premium live sports services in Ultra HD. The solution will be part of a workshop on 4K/8K TV broadcasting and production equipment. PERSEUS is a ground-breaking video compression technology that enables data and video to be transported, stored and secured faster and more cost effectively.

The demonstration showcases V-Nova PERSEUS video decoded on a COTS computer to display the quality of UHDp50 footage of football content delivered within the tight constraints of satellite bandwidth.V-Nova PERSEUS is a video processing technology that addresses video delivery challenges. PERSEUS software closes the capacity gap for quality delivery to connected devices over existing networks. It redraws the traditional quality-bitrate curve, enabling operators and service providers to provide high quality video within their bandwidth constraints. Thaicom Public Company Limited and Intersat Limited have launched their Managed Satellite Network Service for Intersat and Thaicom enterprise and government customers over the iDirect satellite hub platform. The companies recently signed a multi-year deal for capacity on the THAICOM 6/ AFRICOM 1 satellite. Intersat will manage the end-to-end service from its Network Operations Center (NOC) in Nairobi, Kenya. The platform provides a fully managed, customized turnkey service, utilising state-of-the-art evolution hub technology by iDirect which, when combined with THAICOM 6/ AFRICOM 1’s powerful beams over Africa, leverages high degrees of efficiency to deliver cost-effective and competitive managed services to its customers. The satellite service is a fullymanaged, customised, turnkey service for reliable and secure communications with a rugged network infrastructure and a quick turnaround time. This is also a step towards an integrated workflow for UHD content transiting over the Thaicom satellite infrastructure in order to offer the best quality content in real-time to consumers, regardless of their location.

New channels HBO Asia has entered into an exclusive partnership with Advance Info Service (AIS) in Thailand to offer its bouquet of six 24-hour, commercial-free premium movie channels – HBO, HBO SIGNATURE, HBO HITS, HBO FAMILY, RED By HBO and CINEMAX, via the internet and on mobile devices. It has also launched its on-demand service, HBO GO, in Thailand where HBO subscribers can benefit from dual language audio options in English and Thai for selected titles. Game of Thrones star, Liam Cunningham who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, in the hit HBO original series, was in Bangkok for the ‘AIS World Class Entertainment’ event to mark the launch of HBO’s bouquet of channels on AIS in Thailand. HBO’s bouquet of channels has been available to its fixed broadband and mobile subscribers since March, via IPTV on AIS Playbox, as well as on the on-demand service, HBO GO, via the mobile app, AIS Play. The subscribers in Thailand will finally be able to stream HBO content and access it anytime, anywhere via their mobile devices across multiple screens.