Sky Deutschland to follow UK lead and launch 4K sportchannel in Fall

[donaldk]

Perhaps as early as September, Carsten Schmidt, Sky-Deutschland CEO told reporters Monday at a press meeting in Munich Germany. The announcement lacked details, but like in the UK it will involve the BundesLiga Germany's premier football league. As Sky's overall strategy is based on acquiring premium sports rights in all territories it operates in, building its offer around the exclusive content. A 4K enabled Sky+ box will be required. The European Champions League is also likely to be captured in 4K this upcoming season. Sky has exclusive live rights to the Bundesliga for one more season, from the 2017/2018 season it has almost all of the rights, four matches a season are to be aired on public broadcaster ZDF, and five matches per season on Sundays and Monday nights as well as the Fridaynight matches will be available through Discovery Networks owned Eurosport.

Sky Deutschland is also negotiating for 4K movierights.

[donaldk]

Following Sky Deutschland's formal confirmation last week, we also received word from the satellite Carrier that will transmit the two new channels on its ASTRA satellite.

German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland will be launching two exclusive Ultra HD channels via SES's prime orbital position of 19.2 degrees East in autumn.

Sky Deutschland will show one game per each Bundesliga match day on Sky Sport Bundesliga UHD and selected games from the UEFA Champions League on Sky Sport UHD – all in stunningly sharp video resolution that is four times higher than HD.

"Sky customers will be the first ones to enjoy the best football matches in Germany and Austria live in Ultra HD. They will get the best programming in the best quality, ahead of everyone else. We are trusting our long-term partner SES to ensure the reliable and uninterrupted broadcasting of our exclusive Ultra HD content, opening new doors to the future of TV," said Stefan Kunz, Vice President Broadcast Services at Sky Deutschland.

"SES is excited to be supporting our long-term customer, Sky Deutschland, in launching their first two Ultra HD channels. Just as our satellite capacity enabled Sky Deutschland to launch their first HD channels back in 2005, SES will provide the same, if not better, quality of capacity and services to ensure the seamless broadcasting of Sky Sport Bundesliga UHD and Sky Sport UHD," said Norbert Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Commercial, Europe at SES.

[donaldk]

Pay TV provider Sky Deutschland, with over 4.6 million customers and annual revenues of EUR 2 billion, the pay TV market leader in Germany and Austria, broadcasts premium programs in UHD as additional content. In mid-October 2016, the pay TV provider went on air with live broadcasts of matches in the UEFA Champions League and the Bundesliga, Germany's professional soccer league. These matches are being broadcast on Sky Sport Bundesliga UHD and Sky Sport UHD. Sky Deutschland is now also broadcasting some of its premium programs live in UHD.

From ingest and storage to playout and headend, Rohde & Schwarz signal processing solutions are used. Rohde & Schwarz and system integrator Qvest Media planned and implemented the project.



Sky based the entire production chain on UHD, from ingest and storage to playout and headend. This workflow includes three R&S VENICE 4K servers that are used to provide channels for playout and to record the live program. Immediately after recording, the program can be played out as a repeat or used in a compilation for program planning to optimize broadcasting.

"The solutions from Rohde & Schwarz help us to offer our customers the best program in the best possible quality. Plus, the R&S VENICE 4K enables us to optimize our workflows: it records a UHD signal as a complete native file, so we no longer have to merge quadrants via external systems and therefore also save time", says Christian Barth, Head of Strategy & Architecture / Broadcast Services at Sky Deutschland, explaining the advantages of the ingest and playout platform.

The R&S SpycerBox Ultra TL is used for storage. And the R&S CLIPSTER mastering system prepares the film material for broadcasting. The complex interoperable master format (IMF) in which the large production studios deliver material is converted by the R&S CLIPSTER into a customized Sky IMF version.

Broadcasting the UHD picture signals to viewers via the existing infrastructure requires strong data compression based on HEVC technology that does not impair picture quality. After a rigorous selection process, Sky procured the HEVC encoder from the Munich-based Rohde & Schwarz group. In comparison with other manufacturers' products currently on the market, the R&S AVHE100 encoding and multiplexing platform clearly provided the best picture quality, even at reduced data rate. Besides the systems themselves, the order also includes a two-year maintenance contract.

RS licenses the Fraunhofer HEVC Compression Technology. Fraunhofer RS has been providing 4K processing and compression technology in most of the Sky's test broadcasts since 2012/3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jMwpT56GEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h1tQMxz7iA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJwpxYksm0