[Satellite TODAY 05-10-11] GlobeCast and Japan International Broadcasting (JIB) have launched NHK World HD on the Sky and Freesat platforms in the United Kingdom, the companies announced May 9.

GlobeCast is providing the re-encoding, uplink, and capacity on Eutelsat’s Eurobird 1 to deliver the channel to more than 10 million Sky subscribers and 1 million Freesat viewers.

The NHK World HD feed is downlinked in France at GlobeCast’s Bercenay and Sainte Assise teleports, and sent via fiber on GlobeCast’s backbone network to the London operations center, where the video is re-encoded and AC3 audio is added. The channel is then uplinked to the Eurobird 1 satellite for the Sky platform.

“The live video coverage of the earthquake and tsunami which hit Eastern Japan on March 11 displayed the power of HD television extensively. Now we are able to make this state of the art technology and powerful English language news coverage available to the television viewers in the United Kingdom through our partnership between GlobeCast,” JIB CEO Hatsuhisa Takashima said in a statement.