Rai and Eutelsat team up for EURO 2016 Ultra HD broadcast schedule

Italian national public broadcaster Rai and Eutelsat are collaborating to deliver unprecedented live coverage of premium sport in Ultra HD. Following an agreement between the two companies, seven matches of the EURO 2016 championship will be offered to Italian TV homes receiving Tivùsat, the free-to-view platform distributed by satellite from Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD video neighbourhood.

The live broadcasts of European Championship matches constitute Italy’s most significant satellite broadcast of live sport in Ultra HD and prefigure the launch of regular channels. They begin on 30 June, with the first match of the quarter-finals, followed on 1, 2 and 3 July by the other quarter final matches. The semi-finals will be broadcast in Ultra HD on 6 and 7 July with the final scheduled for 10 July.

Viewers equipped with an Ultra HD screen and a CAM certified by Tivùsat will be able to watch the matches by tuning to the number of the special channel to be activated by Tivùsat for the championship. Take-up of Ultra HD screens in Italy is accelerating, with ANITEC, the Italian association representing the ICT industry, forecasting that sales will surpass one million units by end 2016.

The special broadcasts also involve the support of technology partners, including V-Nova from the UK that will provide the P.Link 4K, a software-based contribution encoding and decoding system that will contribute the highest signal quality from the International Broadcasting Centre to be located in Paris.

Eutelsat and Rai are also collaborating on the complete upscale to HD of 11 Rai channels broadcast by satellite. Five channels are already available in HD via Tivùsat (Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3, Rai Sport 1 and Rai 4), to be joined in May by Rai Movie and Rai Premium. The complete upgrade will be achieved by end 2016.