Broadcasting centre
Our broadcasting centre, located in Warsaw, allows us to transmit TV signals to our transponders on the Hot Bird satellite. Some of the TV channels included in our offering are transmitted by their own broadcasters or by third parties. To the best of our knowledge, the centre, built in 2006 and extended in 2009, is one of the largest facilities of its kind in Poland. In 2012, we once again upgraded the transmission systems, enabling the playout of as many as 100 TV channels. Our satellite centre is equipped with state-of-the-art IT systems, as well as audio and video systems, allowing us to broadcast TV channels in SD and HD formats.
In order to secure our satellite centre and its components against the risk of damage or shut-down, crucial elements of our broadcasting, transmission and multiplexing equipment have protections at key points in the system. Moreover, whenever necessary, Eutelsat is obliged to make substitute capacity available to us. In 2013, we started to equip our backup uplink centre with broadcasting equipment.
Set-top boxes
We launched production of our own SD and HD set-top boxes in November 2007 and April 2010, respectively.
So far, 12 different models have left our production lines:
- four SD receivers (MINI, Familijny, F300 and M100)
- five HD receivers, including one with embedded hard drive and recording functionality (HD 5000, HD 6000, MINI HD 2000, HD 3000, PVR HD 7000)
- three models at DVB-T standard (T-HD 1000, T-HD 210 and T-HD 200)
- one 320 GB USB hard drive (DTU 320).
We have recently added the Wi-Fi capability to our HD set-top boxes for Internet access, and access to IPLA, the largest online TV service.
All set-top boxes we manufacture for HD television also have the IPLA application installed, giving subscribers the added bonus of access to our online TV content. Subscribers can also use the Multiroom HD service with our set-top boxes.
Set-top boxes we manufactured accounted for more than 90% of all set-top boxes sold or leased by us in 2013. As at the end of 2013, our production plant had manufactured over 5 million set-top boxes, including over 3.3 million HD units.
