NTV Plus

NTV Plus НТВ Плюс
Launched	September 1, 1996
Owned by	Gazprom Media
Picture format	16:9 (SDTV)
Country	Russia
Website	NTV Plus NTV Plus Ukraine

NTV Plus (Russian: НТВ Плюс) is the brand name for the Russian digital satellite television service from NTV, transmitted from Eutelsat's W4 satellite at 36.0°E and from Bonum 1 at 56.0°E. Previously a part of Vladimir Gusinsky's media empire (Media Most holding), now it is included in the Gazprom Media holding.

1996 - First broadcasts of NTV-Plus appeared on September 1, 1996

1997 - Since early in the year the channels were broadcast in encoded form.

1998 - On November 22 NTV-Plus started satellite TV broadcasting.

1999 - In February NTV-Plus switched from an analogue to digital broadcasting system allowing the expansion of the number of channels from five to fifty. In December NTV-Plus started re-broadcasting digital channels in two languages.

2000 - On May 25 another Eutelsat-W4 satellite was put into orbit allowing the expansion of the broadcasting area.

2005 - Beginning of Dolby Digital 5.1 broadcasting

2006 - Broadcasting begins in Ukraine territory

2007 - Broadcasting in HDTV

Starting from 2007, NTV Plus offers high-definition television (HDTV) programming. The following channels are offered: HD Kino (cinema), HD Sport (sports), HD Life (nature & travel), Eurosport HD, Discovery HD, MTV/Nickelodeon HD, National Geographics HD (nature), Mezzo Live HD (classical and jazz music).

The content is either produced by NTV Plus itself or received from foreign partners. The programming is delivered in 1080i25 format using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec with 10 Mbit/s data rate. NTV Plus has contracted with France's Thomson to manufacture the receivers that accept signal encoded in MPEG-4.

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Wikipedia