Globecast, a service company for the media, radio and television industry, announced that it is expanding its partnership with telecommunications company Eutelsat Communications to develop a new HOTBIRD platform that, the company claims, will satisfy the increasing move from SD to HD in the market.
“We’ve seen increasing demand for capacity across Europe from west to east as the migration to HD on HOTBIRD continues to grow. TRT Arabi and Belarus 24 partnering with us for HD distribution earlier this year are prime examples. In order to meet this increasing demand, we have launched this new platform with Eutelsat, significantly increasing our DVBS2 capacity – suitable for HD and UHD for free-to-air DTH or distribution to affiliates – across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa,” said Samuel Lemercier, Strategic Projects Director, Globecast.
The new HOTBIRD platform will feature expanded capacity as well as ground segment services with connectivity to Globecast’s fibre network, Globecast Backbone Network and the company’s media management capabilities. Deutsche Welle (DW), a German international public broadcasting company, will be the first customer to utilize this new platform. DW will launch its flagship English language HD TV channel via the new Globecast service. This will include end-to-end channel contribution from DW’s facilities in Berlin to Globecast in Paris and uplinking from that location. Globecast has a long-standing partnership with DW and has distributed its channels in both the Middle East and Asia.
“We have worked with Globecast for quite some time and trust both their business and technical expertise and the quality of service they provide. We moved to HD across Asia several years ago and the time is now right to make the move in Europe to increase image quality for our viewers. We’re very pleased to extend our relationship with both Eutelsat and Globecast,” said Hubert Czaja, Head of Distribution Systems, Deutsche Welle.
“Our partnership with Globecast is very important as HOTBIRD continues to experience growth in the HD market, notably for free-to-air and internationally renowned channels benefiting from this neighbourhood‘s unrivalled reach in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. This new platform provides cost-effective HD – and UHD – distribution as channels look to increase viewer engagement and satisfy the ever-growing demand for HD,” commented Aymeric Genty, Regional Vice-President, for France and Overseas, Benelux, the United Kingdom, the Nordics and Israel for Eutelsat.
“Our relationship with Eutelsat is central to our channel distribution business and the operational model has long since been proven to provide the quality of service demanded by our customers. Using DVB-S2 allows us to be more efficient in the management of transponder capacity and therefore more cost-effective. This means we can efficiently support the ongoing migration to HD and to offer more bandwidth as and when required. We’re seeing a great deal of activity across the satellite market as channels continue to migrate to HD,” added Lemercier.
Edited by Kojo Essah
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