eutelsat2508_eutelsat 29/08/2015 09:09 Page 1
UHD Experience and Innovation
Advanced Television talks
to Eutelsat about its
commitment to 4K UHD
and its enthusiasm to
share its experience with
broadcasters and content
producers.
e are an Ultra HD
innovation leader,”
declares Markus Fritz,
Director Commercial Development and
Marketing, for Eutelsat. “Our
philosophy is we want to create a
sustainable 4K ecosystem – from the
studio to the home, and remove all
bottlenecks along the way.”
“Central to this effort is our 4K1
demonstration channel with minimum 50
Frames per second (fps) frame rate and 10 bit
colour depth to show the full potential of 4K
picture quality. 4K1 is free-to-air across
“W
“Show the full potential of
4K quality.”
Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. We
have recently increased substantially the
amount of exclusive content on this channel
with deals with SPI International and Anixe
HD Television. SPI is previewing some of the
content that will be shown on its ‘4K Fun Box
UHD’ launching later this year. German
broadcaster Anixe HD is providing content
from documentaries, cooking shows and a
cinema magazine. This adds to collaborations
with channels like Red Bull, Rai and the
French public broadcasters.”
“The idea is everyone can make sure
they’ve optimised their processes in preproduction and post production – we have
“We have learned a
lot...and we are happy to
share it.”
26 EUROMEDIA
learned a lot in the last two years and we are
happy to share it with customers. We have
produced the 4K for customers and partners
where we can summarise our experience and
pass on what we have learned.”
“We extend an open invitation to any
broadcaster or channel operator on 4K1 in the
footprint, but also we have a fleet of satellites
with global coverage – we had a demo channel
at CommunicAisa, for example, or in Latin
America, or in North America – all across the
global footprint, we’re happy to help in driving
4K technology forward.”
“For us it is a real commitment and we
have put significant resources behind it; not
only manpower and marketing but also
‘space assets’, we’re helping our customers
feed the market.”
“We are also cooperating on 4K
Eutelsat launched its first Ultra HD
demonstration channel in January
2013 on the 10° East satellite, and in
May 2014 launched 4K1 on HOT BIRD
with High Efficiency Video Coding
(HEVC), 50 fps and 10-bit colour
depth. In France, the FRANSAT
platform has launched FRANSAT Ultra
HD, a demo TV channel for French TV
viewers via the EUTELSAT 5 West A
satellite.
HOT BIRD 4K1 (13° East):
l Frequency: 11 296 MHz
l Horizontal Polarization
l DVB-S2 8PSK ¾
l Symbol rate: 27500
l Ultra HD content encoded in
HEVC
l 50 frames/second
l 10-bit colour depth (1 billion
colours)
l Can be viewed on new consumer
TV sets with embedded DVB-S2
demodulator and HEVC decoder (50
/ 60 fps)
developments with three key TV
manufacturers - Samsung, LG and Panasonic
- to make sure they can test ‘live’ 4K content
with their devices. We are also doing
research with them to establish what are the
price points for certain screen sizes where
different parts of the market will ‘join in’.”
“In addition, we’re also doing consumer
“A real commitment...we
put significant resources
behind it.”
focus groups in Germany, UK, France, Italy
and Poland, to try and understand the
different dynamics of the markets. For
example, we learned from the groups in the
UK and Germany that existing HD
subscribers are prepared to invest in new
televisions with 4K because they believe it
will be worth it from a picture quality point
of view, even when there is relatively little
4K content available, so they will ‘preinvest.’ In Poland, France and Italy the
reaction is more ‘show us the content and
then we will buy.’”
“In terms of content, sport is clearly
where the greatest value is perceived and we
are happy we at least have more content
now than we had in the early days of the
launch of HD. But content is less of an issue
than finding the right entity to market the
concept now. We have a very positive
feedback from cable operators, for instance,
who see 4K promoted by OTT providers and
they want to prove cable is 4K ready and
can deliver, and so many cable operators
ask if they can use our channel on their
networks.”