Barnfind, Village Island support live 4K sports workflow

WOWOW, Japan’s major private satellite broadcasting and pay television station with three full HD channels, recently broadcast two 4K programmes – a tennis match in the Ariake Colosseum (Koto-ku, Tokyo) and a boxing world title match in the Yokohama International Water Arena (Yokohama Tsuzuki-ku) – live from an event called “TOUCH! WOWOW 2014”.

Both programmes were transmitted from WOWOW’s studio to Belle Salle Akihabara Event Hall in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo for 4K public viewing using an ultra high-definition large-scale 355-inch LED display.

The Barnfind BarnOne BTF1-07 WDM system was used for 4K live transmission between WOWOW’s studio and the Belle Salle Akihabara Event Hall in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. Barnfind’s BTF-1-07 can transmit eight 3G-SDI signal over WDM without loss of synchronization, allowing transport of 4K or even 8K uncompressed signals.

WOWOW used a single 1RU BTF-1-07 on each site for simultaneous transmission and reception of a 4x3G-SDI signal.

“It was very nice for the operators to monitor the transmitted 4K signal by the return path in a 1 RU unit,” said Michael van Dorpe, CEO of Village Island, Barnfind’s local partner in Japan.

Itochu Cable Systems Corp, business partner of Village Island in Japan, played a coordinating role and offered the Barnfind’s BarnOne to WOWOW.