Arqiva announced at the NAB Show that the British firm will team up with SAT-GE, a subsidiary of General Electric, to provide a satellite-based HD video platform for the Asia Pacific region. The final result, the firms said, will enable broadcasters to send and receive HD/SD content with Asian Pacific broadcasters and, in some cases, with cable interests.
Arqiva has a digital media center and teleport in Los Angeles, which will uplink the new platform to satellite GE 23 (at 172 degrees East). The orbit position was chosen to provide the broadest possible satellite footprint from America to key sites in Asia Pacific—notably China, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
MPEG-4 encoding will be standard, in a range of bit-rates, to include 12 and 8 Mbps for HD and 4 Mbps for SD. Arqiva is based in Hampshire, England.
