HONG KONG & SAN JOSE, CALIF.—A second UHD channel will soon make its way to the air for satellite operator AsiaSat thanks to its partnership with Harmonic. Schedule to go live March 1, 4K-SAT2/HVN is AsiaSat 4’s latest free-to-air UHD channel that will be located at 122 degrees East for Asia-Pacific.

Harmonic NASA TV UHD Earth Shot

The 4K-SAT2/HVN channel will carry 4K video content from Harmonic’s video library, as well as content from the NASA TV UHD channel. Using a Harmonic end-to-end UHD video processing system, the UHD channel will deliver content in 2160p60 with HEVC Main 10 profile. Content will be available to viewers with an AsiaSat 4 C-band antenna and a HEVC set-top box.

Among the equipment used to operate the channel are Harmonic’s MediaGrid shared storage system; Polaris playout management suite; Spectrum X advanced media server system; and the Electra X3 UHD media processor.

AsiaSat’s new UHD channel to be uplinked from Tai Po earth station in Hong Kong.

MUNICH & HONG KONG—The Asia Satellite Telecommunications company has teamed up with Rohde & Schwarz to deliver a free to air Ultra HD channel to AsiaSat 4. Operating at 122 degrees east and with a high-power C-band footprint, AsiaSat 4 can distribute the UHD channel from New Zealand to Pakistan and part of the Middle East.

To do this, Rohde & Shcwarz provided its R&S Clipster mastering station for editing, handling and playing out UHD data in real-time. The company also supplied its R&S AVHE100 headend for live encoding using an HEVC encoder with 10-bit color depth.

AsiaSat 4 will launch its UHD channel in October.