General Instrument's DigiCipher(R)II/MPEG-2 Equipment Chosen by Viacom To
Launch The MTV 'Suite' of New Music Services
SAN DIEGO, June 16 /PRNewswire/ -- General Instrument Corporation (NYSE:
GIC) announced today that MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc., has purchased
GI's DigiCipher(R)II/MPEG-2 equipment for the launch of MTV Networks'
ten-pack of digital services from MTV: Music Television, VH1 and
Nickelodeon.
MTV Networks' digital offerings will include a package of six music channels
from their core music networks known as "The Suite from MTV & VH1" and is
scheduled for launch in July, 1998. Nickelodeon's digital channels will
include Noggin, an educational channel featuring programming from
Nickelodeon and the Children's Television Workshop; Nickelodeon Games &
Sports, which will feature classic kids-first game shows; and the East and
West Coast feeds of Nickelodeon known as Nick Too. The Nick channels are
scheduled for launch in January 1999.
The 10-channel, fully redundant DigiCipher II encoder purchased for MTVN
incorporates GI's System Release 6.3, which includes "Min/Max StatMux," a
powerful new addition to GI's "Statistical Multiplexing" technology.
"As the world's leading music and children's television programmer, MTV
Networks' choice of DigiCipher II/MPEG-2 equipment highlights the extent to
which GI's system has become widely adopted for delivery of digital signals
to cable operators and other subscribers," said Thomas J. Lynch, Senior Vice
President, General Manager, GI's Satellite Data Network Systems. "GI's
DCII/MPEG-2 system is used by an overwhelming critical mass of digital
programming services in North America and in other key markets around the
world."
There are more than 3,000 digital channels operating with GI encoders, and
GI has shipped more than 3.5 million digital decoders, both satellite and
cable.
According to Marc Tayer, Vice President, Global Marketing for GI's Satellite
Data Network Systems, the GI DigiCipher II/MPEG-2 encoders, such as those
selected by MTV Networks, are fully interoperable with the massive digital
cable roll-out now occurring.
"GI has already installed more than 500 digital cable headends, passing more
than 25 million cable subscribers," said Tayer. "In addition, GI has
shipped more than one million interactive digital cable consumer set-tops to
operators, delivering services on the interactive digital broadband
networks. No other company is shipping commercial volumes of digital cable
equipment."
Statistical Multiplexing or "StatMux" allows increased digital video
capacity by examining all the incoming video feeds as a group, and
dynamically assigning compression bit rates based upon the complexity and
motion in each feed. StatMux relies on the fact that, at any given time,
there will be some feeds that have lots of motion, some with very little,
and some that are "average."
StatMux works by having all the channels that are included in the group
report their compression demands to one decision maker - the Packet
Multiplexer (PM). The PM considers all of the demands, decides on the bit
rate to assign to each channel and then communicates that decision back to
each channel. This "negotiation" for bit rate takes place about 35 times
per video frame -- about 1,000 times per second -- to ensure that even the
slightest change in scene complexity becomes part of the decision-making
process.
Min/Max StatMux is the next generation in GI's pioneering statistical
multiplexing technology, providing superior MPEG-2 video performance. With
Min/Max StatMux, programmers can establish upper and lower limits for their
digital signals on a per channel basis. This not only improves video
performance and consistency, but also facilitates the ability to work with
GI's remultiplexers in the digital cable headends that are now rolling out
nationwide with great momentum.
General Instrument Corporation (NYSE: GIC) is the world leader in analog and
digital systems that provide video, audio and high-speed Internet/data
services over cable and satellite TV networks. This past December, GI
announced that major cable operators expect to purchase at least 15 million
of GI's advanced digital set-top terminals over the next 3-5 years at an
estimated value of $4.5 billion. In January 1998, GI and Sony announced that
they plan to form a strategic alliance to jointly develop technologies for
digital cable TV devices and high definition television products. GI's cable
and satellite TV operations have approximately 7,000 employees and annual
sales of approximately $1.8 billion.
Visit the General Instrument website at www.gi.com
/CONTACT: Media, Greg LaBrache, Director, Communications, 619-404-3967, or
glabrache@gi.com, or Dick Badler, VP, Corporate Communications,
215-323-1618, or dbadler@gi.com, or Investor, Dario Santana, VP, Investor
Relations, 215-323-1213, dsantana@gi.com, all of General Instrument/
16:18 EDT |
