Largest ever over-the-air upgrade for UK digital TV

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Cabot Communications, the specialist DTV software supplier, has completed the largest single secure over-the-air upgrade of Freeview set top boxes in the UK using the Engineering Channel . The upgrade, which involved over 200,000 Goodmans GDB2 set top boxes currently in the field, was completed using Cabot’s Callisto Over-Air Download (OAD) module in seven days, from 9-16 June 2003.

Keith Potter, managing director of Cabot Communications said:

"This successful upgrade represents a milestone in the UK free-to-air digital TV industry. Users are demanding a faultless, high-quality service from their set-top boxes and manufacturers are under pressure to update their products to support the latest digital interactive standards. We have now proved, conclusively, that a mass over-the-air upgrade can be achieved for set top boxes in the field, removing yet another obstacle for the mass adoption of free to air digital TV."

The upgrade provided major enhancements to the Goodmans GDB2 model, by installing Cabot’s Eclipse DVB middleware and its Mercator MHEG-5 engine to support latest Freeview services, provide an improved user interface and faster user interaction speeds.