March 2013

PLAYBOY IN HD ON ASIASAT 5

Playboy Plus Entertainment, managed by Manwin Media, has launched encrypted HD Playboy Asia Channel on the AsiaSat-5 satellite. From AsiaSat Tai Po Earth Station in Hong Kong, the HD Playboy Asia Channel is uplinked to AsiaSat 5 (100.5 degrees East), through a C-band DVB-S2 MCPC platform for delivery to over 50 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and CIS.

Playboy Plus Entertainment GM-Asia Pacific Lanny Huang said, "We are proud to launch HD Playboy Asia, the first channel targeting the adult audience in Asia. The 24/7 linear HD channel will include a unique blend of content including Playboy originals and the addition of our highly-acclaimed Digital Playground movies, offering extreme cinematic experience to our viewers."

AsiaSat President and CEO William Wade said, "We are pleased that Playboy Plus chose AsiaSat 5 for the launch of its first HD Playboy channel in the Asia Pacific. We are proud to meet the increased demand of international broadcasters who expect comprehensive and cost efficient transmission solutions while at the same time appreciate the benefit of AsiaSat 5's excellent access to Asian pay TV platforms."

AsiaSat also provides encryption service to the channel from its Tai Po Earth Station in Hong Kong.

HD PAY CHANNEL

While the channel will have millions of eager viewers throughout its AsiaSat-5 footprint, the High Definition channel is encrypted using Irdeto-2. The High Definition channel uses MPEG-4, DVB-S2.

Special IRDs are required to receive the signals. Since the transmissions are in the C band, clearly the channel intends to feed Cable TV Headends rather than direct reception by end consumers.

NOT PERMITTED IN INDIA

HD Playboy Asia carries pornographic content and is not approved by the I&B ministry for reception in India.

The HD channel offers Playboy branded series including Playmates!, The Truth about Sex and The Man, as well as 'adult' movies from studios including world-renown Digital Playground.

HD Playboy Asia's decoders are available in other Asian countries.

MANWIN & PLAYBOY

Manwin is an adult entertainment company headquartered in Luxembourg, with offices in many countries including Britain, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Cyprus and the United States. The company employs a staff of 1,000 in over 35 subsidiaries. Manwin's corporate structure and ownership has been described as being highly complicated and impenetrable for anybody on the outside.

With websites such as Brazzers, YouPorn and Twistys, Manwin claims to be the owner of the largest network of adult websites in the world, with more than 50 million daily visitors.

In November 2011 Manwin took over Playboy's online and entertainment business, which operate a number of television channels and online services. Manwin also operates the Adult Channel and Private Spice TV channels.

It is unusual that Manwin, whose online video sites such as YouPorn are the biggest threat to adult TV channels and on-demand services, also operates these TV channels! n