Eutelsat: 190 UHD channels now active

Eutelsat’s Michel Chabrol (SVP/New TV Formats), speaking at the opening session of the MIPCOM programming market, said that its data shows that there are now 190 Ultra-HD channels or feeds available. This is a 20 per cent increase on a year ago.
 
Satellite delivery is dominating the delivery of UHD channels, with 93 direct channels (out of a total of 109 feeds), with 95 IPTV-based UHD services and another pair of channels now on digital terrestrial services.
 
Europe’s 46 countries (and 33 languages) are responsible for 86 channels.
 
Chabrol explained that the demand for UHD programming and services was considerable, and that over the past year the following technical initiatives had started:
 

• Germany: Deutsche TV Plattform (DTV
• UK: DTG UK UHD Foru
• Italy: Ultra HD Forum Italy
• France: Forum AudioVisuel Numérique (FAVN)
• NorDig in the Nordic countries
• Spain:  UHD Spain to be launched in November 2019 (Malaga – Medina Media)
• Russia: No association, but 4k & HDR conference (Moscow – Oct. – Telesputnik)
• 4K Sessions at MIPTV (April) and MIPCOM (Oct.) in Cannes (France), where Production meets Distribution

 
He stressed that this list was far from complete, and that various countries and regions – not least China – were also active in creating UHD initiatives.
 
Chabrol confirmed that Eutelsat also had an 8K test channel on air from its Hotbird satellite. Hotbird was also carrying a total of eleven 4K/UHD channels for various markets.

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