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[Via Satellite 04-13-2016] Rai, Italy’s national public broadcaster, and Eutelsat have reached an agreement to broadcast seven matches of the Euro 2016 championship in Ultra-HD. Eutelsat will distribute the live broadcasts to Italian TV homes receiving Tivùsat, the free-to-view platform distributed via the operator’s Hot Bird video neighborhood. The initiative with Eutelsat marks Rai’s most ambitious foray into Ultra-HD. The broadcasts also involve the support of technology partners such as V-Nova from the U.K., which will provide P.Link 4K, a software-based contribution encoding and decoding system.

The live broadcasts of European Championship matches constitute Italy’s most significant satellite broadcast of live sport in Ultra-HD, and prefigure the launch of regular channels. They begin on June 30, with the first match of the quarter-finals, followed on July 1, 2 and 3 by the other quarter final matches. Eutelsat and Rai will broadcast the semi-finals in Ultra-HD on July 6 and 7, with the final scheduled for July 10.

Eutelsat and Rai are also collaborating on the complete upscale to HD of 11 Rai channels broadcast by satellite. Five channels are already available in HD via Tivùsat (Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3, Rai Sport 1 and Rai 4), to be joined in May by Rai Movie and Rai Premium. The complete upgrade is scheduled for completion by the end of 2016.