Arqiva has announced plans for an international high definition distribution platform. The occasional use service, launching this July, will adopt both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 technologies and DVB-S2 modulation through ten international teleports.
Although many sports channels offer high definition coverage on domestic events, international feeds often remain in standard definition, however with recent coverage of US Open Golf, the Superbowl, and the upcoming Euro 2008 the picture is about to change.
Simon Thrush, Senior Vice President for Arqiva in the United States said the service would take advantage of Arqiva’s connectivity into the UK and continental Europe. “With so many important political, sporting and cultural events scheduled for the second half of 2008, we are very excited to be delivering a service which makes life simpler for our Occasional Use customers, giving them cost-effective access to HD’s superior picture and sound quality whenever they need it.
The platform will include up-down conversions between standard and high definition, frame rate, and format conversion.
