Motorola announced what it expects will be the first commercial integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) to deliver three-channel MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 HD transcoding.
With that capability, the new DSR-6300 IRD will enable cable operators to increase HD throughput by up to 50 percent, Motorola said, while offering satellite operators greater flexibility in packaging HD services to their affiliates.
The DSR-6300 employs Motorola’s closed-loop statistical multiplexing. The IRD analyzes video complexity and then dynamically allocates the optimal bandwidth to each program. This process provides bit-rate adjustments to services as video becomes more or less difficult to encode.
As a result, Motorola explains, up to three HD services can be efficiently delivered to the home, significantly increasing the number of services that can be delivered over a standard cable 256-QAM feed.
The DSR-6300 simultaneously uses the in-band active format descriptor (AFD) to translate input HD services to an appropriate standard-definition (SD) service with proper aspect ratio and resolution. This will allow programmers to migrate to HD-only distribution strategies, further freeing up valuable satellite bandwidth for delivering even more HD services.
Field trials for the DSR-6300 are planned with programmers, with general availability in North America and South America beginning in the third quarter of this year.