TF1 Takes Thomson for Rugby World Cup

Under its long-standing partnership with the French television network TF1, Thomson is supplying most of the equipment being used by TF1 for coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, which will be held in France from September 7 to October 20.

Thomson solutions, used for all technical services, will enable TF1, which owns exclusive rights to the World Cup, to produce, transmit and broadcast television images of this event live and, for some media (satellite, ADSL, Digital Terrestrial Television), in high definition.

Thomson will be involved throughout the image chain, from capture to broadcasting to transmission. Thomson is supplying most of the service providers selected by TF1 with equipment such as cameras, mixers and more.

The company has also designed and developed TF1's entire central control room on a turnkey basis, for both SD and HD. The central control room is used for broadcasting the usual programming, but also has HD capacities that TF1 can use to transmit images from the event live in SD across all networks and in HD on satellite, TV ADSL and via the HD Digital Terrestrial Television experiment in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.

Most of the HD encoders used are being provided by Thomson. The digital transmitters that Thomson supplies to TDF will also be used to transmit images and sounds in HD in the Paris and Rennes areas.