Eutelsat, one of the world's leading satellite operators, will provide a turnkey package of 50 video channels to ensure the coming Turin Winter Olympic Games is aired without a hitch.

The package is an effective example of integration of a Satellite and Fibre network provided by the company, an official sponsor of the Turin Games. which has transmission capacity available on 22 geostationary satellites.

The package is made up of 19 exclusive Olympic channels provided by TOBO (the Turin Olympic Broadcasting Organization), 30 international television channels and an information channel with local weather news, sports results and competition details.

This Olympic package is received at Sestriere and fed to the IBC via a local fibre network. In order to manage this network Eutelsat has installed in the IBC a distribution and monitoring platform, and an MPEG2 encoding and encryption platform.

After the encoding and the encryption processes, the Olympic Channels are delivered by fibre to the teleport of Skylogic Italia - Eutelsat's subsidiary in Italy - and uplinked to Eutelsat's EUROBIRD 3. Then the signal is received again at the Olympic sites and fed into a fibre network for the transmission of the whole bouquet to the screens located around the Olympic area such as hotels, Olympic Villages and lounges.

Utilising the ability of satellites to provide seamless coverage and serve hard-to-reach markets, Skylogic Italia is uniquely positioned for providing a diversified range of broadcast and broadband services. Networks are established using small two-way antennas that enable communications independently from terrestrial infrastructure.

Eutelsat and Skylogic Italia have joined efforts to provide Rights Holders and non-Rights Holders with direct broadcasting facilities from a range of Olympic Sites.

Six equipped TV studios will be available to broadcasters and journalists for the duration of the Winter Olympic Games, from 10 to 26 February. Five of these studios are based in competition sites in the mountains: Pragelato Plan, San Sicario Fraiteve, Sestriere Colle, Sestriere Borgata, Bardonecchia, Sauze D'oulx, and one in the city of Turin.

Source: China Daily