GlobeCast and Japan International Broadcasting (JIB) have launched the NHK World HD channel on the Sky and Freesat platforms in the UK. GlobeCast provides the re-encoding, uplink and capacity on Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite, making the channel available to a new audience of more than 10 million Sky subscribers in the UK as well as 1 million Freesat viewers.
Available on Sky Channel 507, NHK World HD is a 24/7 English-language channel produced by JIB and NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, fed live from Tokyo. 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.
GlobeCast already provides turnaround and satellite capacity for NHK World TV in SD format as well as delivers NHK World in HD on a number of IP platforms in Europe.
