Durban-based set-top box manufacturer Altech UEC has been appointed to provide set-top boxes (STBs) for an Australian audience.
The company's Australian office has been appointed to supply high-definition (HD) satellite STBs for the initial phase of the Australian Viewer Access Satellite Television, or VAST service.
VAST is a $200 million government-funded service, which launched this month. It is aimed at providing HD satellite television coverage for Australian consumers who fall outside the digital terrestrial broadcast footprint.
Altech UEC's contract to provide set-top boxes in Australia comes at a time when local manufacturers are still in the dark about when they can produce decoders for the South African market. Government has yet to decide on a standard to use for local boxes, which could delay switchover to digital by up to a year.
Nationwide coverage
Most Australians receive their television services from a network of terrestrial broadcast transmission towers and they will continue to do so after the switch to digital. Viewers who live outside of this coverage will be able to access the same programmes through the VAST service, which will ensure the entire nation is covered.
A spokesman for communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy says Altech UEC will be the only supplier of satellite set-top boxes during the first VAST rollout. The unnamed spokesman says this will ensure a compliant box is available for the new service in the initial switchover regions of Mildura/Sunraysia and regional South Australia.
The Altech UEC VAST certified STB model, DSD4121, has been designed specifically for this application and draws on the latest DVB-S2, MPEG4HD hardware and MHEG5 middleware technology. The project was delivered under extremely aggressive timescales to meet the target date of 1 July for the first regional analogue switch-off.
Altech UEC Australia operations director Russell Futter says: “UEC is extremely proud to have been appointed as the initial supplier for the first VAST rollout and to build on our legacy of having supplied STBs for the original Aurora standard-definition digital TV service in 1998.”
The company has delivered more than 1.7 million set-tops to the Australian commercial and public digital television industry.
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