Partnership with Satlink enables maximum geographic reach
11 September 2009
GlobeCast has renewed and significantly expanded its contract with UEFA in a deal to provide HD coverage of the UEFA Champions League and HD and SD coverage of the UEFA Europa League to non-European rights holders. As a result, GlobeCast has made a significant investment of more than 2million in HD upgrades for its two UK sites, making it one of the most HD capable ad hoc service providers in the world.
For the UEFA Champions League, GlobeCast has partnered with Israeli-based Satlink to deliver all games of Europes most prestigious football competition in HD to 26 territories across the Americas and Asia each night of the competition which runs from mid August to May.
Up to eight games per night will be downlinked in HD from the Eutelsat W2A and Eutelsat W3A satellites using a wide range of new Tandberg RX 1290 receivers across both sites. In order to fulfil such a large capacity requirement, each feed will then be compressed, using new Tandberg E 5782 encoders, into four multiplexes of two 31Mbt HD channels - to fit within 36Mhz satellite transponder slots. English commentary mixes will also be added to all games via ISDN.
For broadcast across the Americas, GlobeCast will convert all eight games using new state of the art Snell & Wilcox Alchemist frame-rate converters. Each feed will then be uplinked out of Brookmans Park to two Intelsat satellites for downlink by rightsholders.
For Asia, Africa and the Middle East, two feeds will be uplinked out of Brookmans Park to the IS904 satellite and the other six out of Satlink in Israel to the Asiasat 2 satellite for downlink by rightsholders across the region.
Similarly for the UEFA Europa League, GlobeCast and Satlink will provide downlink, capacity and uplink services in SD for the early stages and the same in HD for the later stages of the competition.
GlobeCast has worked with UEFA for the delivery of the UEFA Champions League into Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas since 1997.
