I've written about the potential for small Ka-band uplinks to provide communications for broadcast operations, but I haven't seen many reports of them being used for this. We may be getting closer.
Eutelsat Communications this week issued a press release Eutelsat's KA-SAT Satellite Proves its Efficiency for Fast Video File Delivery saying mobile facilities company Jackshoot "is the first to deliver TV rushes over the KA-SAT satellite" to bring the program "Live and Lost with Blackberry" to the U.K.'s Channel 4 television station and YouTube.
The filming and editing van is equipped with the new Dawson GC-Zero 70 system, allowing the vehicle to connect and transmit at 10 Mbps using a low profile 24 cm antenna.
"We wanted to create a product for the media industry that could take advantage of and match the innovation of Eutelsat's KA-SAT satellite," said Ian Dawson, managing director of Dawson. "This first antenna, as part of a new range of Ka antennas, is already causing waves in the industry."
"This innovative newsgathering application, developed and provided by our Skylogic affiliate, prefigures a number of broadcast services that our new KA-SAT platform will be able to deliver," said Cristiano Benzi, head of Video Value Added Services at Eutelsat. "Video contribution is entering a new era and we look forward to expanding our commercial response to serve the needs of channels, production houses and news agencies within the KA-SAT service area of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin."
Rain fade in the Ka-band is still an issue for live video, but using the Ka-band satellite for sending rushes and proxies as files should allow users to work around such fades.
Eutelsat's KA-SAT has 82 narrow spot beams connected to 10 ground stations, allowing frequencies to be reused 20 times and taking total throughput beyond 70 Gbps, thus lowering the cost per bit for broadband and data services such as film file delivery.
