Telekom Austria Group (TAG) and Fashion TV have signed an agreement for the distribution of SD, HD and 4k versions of Fashion TV on Apstar 7.
Speaking to Broadband TV News at NEM, Stanislav Georgiev, group wholesale, head of media broadcasting and Michal Pelach, head of channel distribution, Fashion TV, said that the deal had been signed at the show, which is taking place in Dubrovnik, Croatia. However, the channels had already been trialled on the satellite since February this year.
Significantly, aside from the three channels – the 4k one is known as FTV UHD – Fashion TV is also testing a bouquet of 12 other channels on Apstar using HEVC encoding, with its intention to offer a package of these channels, as a bouquet, by the end of the year.
These channels are not only OTT and can be picked up as linear services.
Fashion TV and TAG already work closely in Europe and the former has now become the telco’s first customer on Apstar 7. However, it is also providing services for other, as yet unnamed, channels on the satellite.
Apstar 7 is a C and K-band satellite and with the former offers extensive coverage of Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa. Fashion TV, which is FTA on the satellite for now, is already been received by over 300 headends.
The playout for FTV UHD is completely software based, which is unique and helps lower operational costs.
