Website: Rapid TV News

Spain’s main audiovisual group, Prisa’s Sogecable, is planning the launch of a pay-DTT operator as a complementary service to its satellite pay-TV operator Digital+.

This future new pay-TV operator will be an individual service to that of Abertis Telecom’s Premium TDT offer, which currently only offers premium soccer channel Gol TV.

That channel’s owner, Mediapro, recently announced its own pay-DTT operator launch. So apparently there will be two pay-TV operators in Spain.

With Sogecable’s new project the producer wants to directly compete with Telefónica’s DSL pay-TV operator Imagenio, cable operator Ono and the country’s other IPTV offerings from Jazztel and Orange.

In order to initiate the new project Sogecable will include the two digital channels allocated to its national free-to-air network Cuatro, which it has agreed to sell to Mediaset’s national private free-to-air network
Telecinco in return for 18% of the capital of the new group.

According to this agreement Telecinco has given Sogecable the management of its pay-TV offering once the two groups are merged.

According to the newspaper Expansión, Prisa is working to have its pay-DTT channels ready for next September once new channels have been added to Gol TV.

But going with a different technology would mean commercial problems so Sogecable could be forced to adopt Abertis Telecom’s chosen technology for its new pay-DTT operator.

Abertis adopted Nagravision and Irdeto conditional accesses.

A total of 270,000 pay-DTT boxes have been sold so far in Spain, all under the TDT Premium standard led by Abertis.

But taking account of the expectations of the pay-DTT market, retailers bought nearly 1.5 million of these boxes. Now it is time to commercialize them.

With the same pay-DTT box the user will be able to get different offerings.

Sogecable’s new pay-DTT offering could cost around €15 monthly according to some company sources, which is the same price as Gol TV’s.

With an averge monthly price of €40, Prisa’s satellite pay-TV operator Digital+ is Prisa’s main income source.

Sogecable wants pay-TV on DTT

Website: Rapid TV News

Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce will oblige TV sets from 21 inches up to integrate high definition tuners by a Royal Decree. The decree is in the preparation phase.

This Decree will also incorporate the standards for HDTV in Spain according to Francisco Ros, general secretary for Telecommunications and the Information Society.

Currently, some TV sets ready for Blu-ray connections are being sold but not all of them can receive the terrestrial HDTV signal with the maximum quality and they need an external tuner.

Finally the secretary pointed out the Audiovisual General Law allows the country’s autonomous regions to agree to broadcast their digital TV channels in each other’s territories, something that’s already been happening for years in the case of analogue television.

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Spain mandates HDTV tuners

Website: Rapid TV News

Canal+ Spain will inaugurate its first 3-D transmissions this year, hoping to become the country’s first TV channel in offering this new technology.

canalplus3d3-D content will be accessible through the iPlus box, the advanced terminal of Sogecable’s pay-TV operator Digital+ which also allows HDTV reception.

Starting in the first half of this year Canal+ Spain will begin offering some of its premium content in 3-D. Sports and culture will be the first type of content offered in 3-D by the pay-TV channel.

According to Miguel Salvat, Canal+’s general director: “The 3-D technology is right now an excellent vehicle to reach the homes of our subscribers with the highest-quality content together with the best technical functionalities.”

Canal+ Spain’s provision of 3-D content will continue to grow as this new technology gets implemented in the market.

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Canal+ Spain to go 3D

Spanish police have apparently closed down one of the world’s largest botnets, and arrested the three main figures behind it, according to reports.

The Mariposa botnet reached its vast tendrils out across an estimated 13 millions PCs, over almost 200 countries, siphoning off sensitive information such as login, password and credit card details.

Although according to the BBC, the three criminals allegedly behind the ring had “limited” hacking skills, and no previous criminal record.

We can believe that, seeing as they got caught when one of them forgot to mask his IP address, leading the authorities directly to him.

The two other ringleaders were tracked down using information found on his computer. Bet he’ll be popular with them in prison.

The police discovered the trio had stored data stolen from over 800,000 different people.

Original post:
Botnet cyber-criminals nabbed in Spain

Amino Communications, the world leading independent IPTV specialist, has won the Costa Rican licitation to provide set-top boxes (STBs) to support a major IPTV rollout by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE – Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad).
The network operator plans to launch services in the first half of 2010, targeting up to 100,000 homes across [...]

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Amino in Costa Rica IPTV deal