Soccer from space: Eutelsat and Rai broadcast first of seven Euro2016 matches in live Ultra HD

Viewers receiving Tivùsat platform offered first quarter final, between Poland and Portugal, in Ultra HD

Paris, Rome, 1 July 2016 – Yesterday’s first quarter-final of the Euro2016 marked the kick-off of seven matches that Rai, Italy’s national public broadcaster, and Eutelsat (NYSE Euronext Paris: ETL) are offering Italian TV homes. The initiative with Eutelsat marks Rai’s most ambitious foray into Ultra HD that represents the next big leap forward in broadcasting.

Unprecedented Ultra HD broadcasts delivered to Tivùsat homes by Eutelsat’s HOTBIRD satellites            

Images of the match were filmed by 14 Ultra HD cameras located by UEFA at the Vélodrome Stadium in Marseilles and sent to the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) in Paris where they were forwarded to Eutelsat’s Paris-Rambouillet teleport. A temporary studio set up by Rai at the teleport added live commentary, after which the special Rai 4k channel was encrypted and uplinked to Eutelsat’s HOTBIRD satellites. Tivùsat homes equipped with an Ultra HD screen and a CAM certified by Tivùsat were able to watch the first quarter-final which will be followed on1, 2 and 3 July by the three other quarter finals, the semi-finals on 6 and 7 July and the final match on 10 July.

These live broadcasts of European Championship matches constitute Italy’s most significant broadcast of live sport in Ultra HD and prefigure the launch of regular channels. With the take-up of Ultra HD screens in Italy expected to hit one million units by end 2016, the market for higher resolution TV is rapidly taking shape.

The special broadcasts also involve the support of industry-leading technology partners, including DBW COMMUNICATION and V-Nova that is providing the P.Link 4K, a software-based contribution encoding and decoding system that can contribute the highest signal quality from the IBC.