[Satellite TODAY 10-07-10] GlobeCast signed a deal with IMG Sports Media Production, a division of IMG Worldwide, to provide HD coverage of up to six English Premier League football matches per week and a highlights package to rights-holders across Europe, Asia and the Americas, GlobeCast announced Oct. 6.
    To support the contract, GlobeCast said it has made a significant investment in MPEG-4 upgrades for its two U.K. sites. IMG will be responsible for the production and distribution for its international programming.
    Before the start of the English Premier League’s 2010-2011 season in August, GlobeCast installed dual dark fibers, channelized to take sixteen HDSDI feeds between IMG and their technical operations center in Central London. This new link, which is capable of receiving up to eight simultaneous redundant feeds, aims to enable GlobeCast to take all matches in uncompressed HD before multiplexing them with MPEG-4 compression through an Ericsson nCompass 6 multiplexer for delivery to satellite.