08/04/04 - Eutelsat and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world's largest professional association of national broadcasters, announced the signature of a contract for four wideband transponders that will be used by the EBU for television coverage of the upcoming Athens Olympic Games.
The contract is for the equivalent of 306 MHz of Ku-band capacity on three Eutelsat satellites: ATLANTIC BIRD* 3, e-BIRD* and W3A, the latest addition to the company's fleet which is planned to enter into commercial service in May. For the duration of the Olympic Games this agreement will double the EBU's capacity leased on a full-time basis to the EBU by Eutelsat.
This additional capacity will allow the EBU to provide private direct point-to-point circuits between Athens and the headquarters of television channels that will have their own TV crews and content aggregation facilities in Athens.* In addition to these private
circuits, the EBU will simultaneously deliver 800 hours of live coverage of the sports events with ambient sound to its 71 members.
The distribution and exchange of programmes relating to sports events is a major part of the EBU's activities. In view of the exceptional worldwide coverage of the Olympic Games the EBU is setting up an infrastructure fully dedicated to the event, with the deployment at the
Olympic site of a new teleport to deliver a total of 36 non-stop programme feeds, 32 of which will be carried by Eutelsat.
Services from the EBU teleport in Athens will start on 2 August with technical tests in conjunction with each control room and recordings of the athletes' preparations. On 11 and 12 August there will be coverage of the football matches scheduled as an avant-première to the Games schedule. These will be followed on 13 August by the Opening Ceremony and the start of the Olympic events, which will continue until 29 August. The EBU's services in Athens will also be deployed to cover theParalympic Games from 17 to 28 September.
"We are delighted to be using the Eutelsat space segment, and these new satellites, to expand the EBU's distribution capacity across Europe. The quality of Eutelsat satellites has been proven in the 20 years or more that we have worked together. For Athens 2004 the EBU will go beyond the threshold of 1 Gbit/s of bandwidth used to distribute pictures to the
broadcast community. This is a new historical record", emphasised Stefan Kürten, Director of the Eurovision Operations Department in Geneva.
"Last year, Eutelsat carried more than 120 000 hours of
videotransmissions on the 9Mbps channels attributed to the EBU, confirming our pole position in this market in Europe. As the primary supplier of satellite capacity to the European Broadcasting Union, we are proud of a relationship which is now in its 20th year and built on
trust and confidence. Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988 we have accompanied the EBU for this exceptional event which requires a level of human commitment and technological performance that can measure up fully to the passionate sporting interest of the public at large," said Giuliano Berretta, Eutelsat CEO
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- הצטרף: 28 דצמבר 2003, 13:52
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