[Satellite Today – 4-17-08] Arqiva will roll out a new international high-definition (HD) platform for occasional use broadcasting, the company announced April 16.
    Arqiva’s Washington Teleport will take feeds in any format, uplinking to any of the company’s ten international teleports and including connectivity to Arqiva’s own global terrestrial fiber network. The combination of either MPEG-4 or MPEG-2 compression with DVB-S2 modulation will maximize bandwidth utilization. The platform will allow standard definition (SD) broadcasters to begin a progressive transition to HD satellite delivery.
    “This will be an invaluable resource for any broadcaster looking to transmit in HD on an occasional-use basis,” said Simon Thrush, senior vice president for Arqiva in the United States in a statement. “The process will be automated and seamless, with the added advantage of unrivalled connectivity through Arqiva’s worldwide infrastructure – especially into the United Kingdom and Europe. With so many important political, sporting and cultural events scheduled for the second half of 2008, we are very excited to be delivering a service which makes life simpler for our occasional use customers, giving them cost-effective access to HD’s superior picture and sound quality whenever they need it.”
    The platform infrastructure and service offering will launch in July 2008.