RRsat Global Communications Network is working with international sports distribution and syndication services provider Sm2 Sports Media Solutions and its teleport partner TV2GO in Canada to deliver a number of major HD sporting events with MPEG-4 technologies.
The system dramatically reduces the amount of satellite bandwidth needed. Using MPEG-4 with high modulation, the companies have been able to transmit HD video at 20Mb/s on 9MHz of satellite capacity.
Usually on 9MHz, one can only transmit 9Mb/s or 10 Mb/s, but with the modulation used, the groups transmit 20Mb/s in MPEG-4, which is equal to 30Mb/s in MPEG-2.
Sm2 and RRsat used the technology to transmit the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship and currently are using it to transmit NFL games to international markets.
