26 April 2006
Radio Netherlands is broadcasting its radio drama The Edges of the Night Watch around the globe in Dutch, English, Spanish and Indonesian from 19 May. The three-part play will be heard around the world directly and through Radio Netherlands partner stations. It is also being broadcast by RAI Tre and Radio Suisse Romande in Italian and French. In the Netherlands, the KRO programme Dolce Vita will broadcast The Edges of the Night Watch. It will also be available on DVD.
The radio drama was produced by Radio Netherlands as part of the Rembrandt Year 400 celebrations and is set in the modern day. The main story is of a worldwide search for the missing pieces of Rembrandts best-known painting The Night Watch. When the painting was moved to the Palace on the Dam in 1715 it proved too big and two strips were cut off. The action includes flashbacks to the life of the master painter in the 17th century, Hollands Golden Age.
DVD
Radio Netherlands has also produced a DVD of the play. This includes all four language versions of the radio drama, an interactive quest based on the play, extra visual material and background information. The DVD is being distributed around the world, partly through Dutch embassies. Deputy Foreign Minister Atzo Nicolai explains: Rembrandt is an important Dutch painter and part of global history. The DVD shows you a great deal about him. About Rembrandt himself and about the Golden Age. The Dutch government regards it as important to have this seen in as many places as possible, particularly abroad. Within the Netherlands the DVD will be available through the Rijksmuseum.
Rembrandt Year 400
To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the painters birth, 2006 has been declared Rembrandt Year 400. Countless exhibitions and events will be taking place in the Netherlands, which are expected to draw around one and half million visitors. One-third of these will be from abroad. In its role as ambassador of Dutch Culture, Radio Netherlands is offering the Rembrandt Year an international, multimedia platform on radio, television and the internet. This will bring tens of millions of people around the world into contact with an icon of Dutch culture: Rembrandt van Rijn.
26 April 2006
A very different set of movie makers will be gathering in Soho tonight (Wednesday 26th April) for their industry’s awards ceremony at the Rex Cinema in Soho. The stars and back room staff of 100 films showcasing University research will be gathering to find out which of their films wowed the most people around the world.
The 100 films were all produced as part of the Research-TV consortium which produce broadcast quality video news releases based on new research which are distributed to television and broadband channels worldwide via APTN’s global satellite distribution service. Over 200 broadcasters in more than 90 countries have used Research-TV stories and each story is used on average by 30 serious news networks within 24 hours of distribution. So far Research-TV has reached an estimated global audience of 250 million people.
Tonight Research-TV are holding a special awards ceremony in the Rex Cinema and bar (21 Rupert Street London W1V starting at 6pm) to mark the release of its 100th story which is Teesside’s Showdown at Red River which can be seen at:
http://www.research-tv.co.uk/stories/science/redriver/
Phil Willis MP, the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology select committee has also kindly agreed to attend the event to present a special award to the best performing Research-TV story Bristol and Darlington College of Arts on Cyborgs, Etem Cells and Vision which was carried by 37 broadcasters and reached around 100 million viewers. It can be seen at:
http://www.research-tv.co.uk/stories/health/eyesight/
There will also be awards for the best performing story in terms of web hits which goes to Kings College London’s story on the “Congestion Charge reducing Congested Chests” and the best all round performing story which goes to Durham for their story on Predicting Landslides.
26 April 2006
High-definition outside broadcast facilities for Coca Cola League and Carling Cup football
Sky-Arqiva partnership at forefront of new technology
HDTV brings next big step in broadcasting
Arqiva has secured a three-year contract with Sky Sports to provide high-definition outside broadcast facilities. The deal will see Arqiva migrating from the standard definition format it currently provides for Sky Sports’ coverage of the Football League competitions, to HD in time for the 2006-07 football season.
Arqiva’s OB facilities will be used to provide HD coverage of the Coca Cola Leagues – Championship, League One and League Two – and the Carling Cup knock-out competition. Sky Sports has already started to produce Barclays Premiership football and Guinness Premiership Rugby in HD and will produce England’s Test and One-Day internationals and county cricket in HD this summer.
Mick Bass, Managing Director of Arqiva Outside Broadcasts, said: “This contract is just the first step for Arqiva and HDTV. With our experience and expertise in broadcasting we are very excited about the migration over to HDTV and we’ll be announcing additional business wins very shortly. While enabling us to continue providing quality outside broadcast services, this deal also reinforces our commitment to staying at the forefront of rapidly changing technologies.”
Darren Long, Head of Sky Sports operations, added, High definition is the next big step in broadcasting and is simply stunning for sport. Arqiva is a great partner for us and will provide excellent facilities on location. We are glad to be working with them on our HD coverage.
Sky HD is on track to launch next month (May 2006) bringing viewers a cinema-like experience with sharper, clearer and more vibrant pictures and, with compatible home cinema systems, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Sky HD will capture detail and movement with greater clarity, providing four times the picture detail of standard definition. In order to enjoy Sky HD consumers will need a compatible HD-ready LCD or plasma TV, a Sky HD box and the relevant subscriptions.
25 April 2006
SES ASTRA announced on 21 April that its new ASTRA 1KR satellite has been successfully launched into orbit. ASTRA 1KR roared into space onboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, last night at 16.27 local time – 22.27 CET. The satellite will now be brought into its final orbital position within the next weeks and will be made commercially available end of June 2006 after extensive in-orbit testing.
ASTRA 1KR will be located at 19.2° East, ASTRA’s prime orbital position for delivering broadcast services to Continental Europe, and will also transmit HDTV channels. With its satellite fleet ASTRA reaches 107 million homes in Europe.
We are very proud and satisfied that the ASTRA 1KR mission has been a success, said Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES ASTRA. ASTRA 1KR will benefit our customers, strengthen our unique inter-satellite back-up scheme and provide replacement capacity for our ASTRA 1B and ASTRA 1C satellites. The success of the ASTRA 1KR mission is a milestone in our company history and shows that we have strengthened the fruitful cooperation with our launch partners, Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems and International Launch Services.
This was an especially important mission for ILS and our customer, SES ASTRA, said ILS President Mark Albrecht. It was our 100th launch, as well as an opportunity to introduce a valued customer to the excellence of Atlas.
The pictures of the launch will be available under www.businesswire.com together with the related press release from ASTRA’s partner ILS.
25 April 2006
GlobeCast, a leading content management and delivery company, and NEOTION, a high-tech company focused on digital TV and MPEG-4 related technologies, announce a strategic Agreement to offer turnkey MPEG-4 AVC satellite distribution platforms. The primary objective is to enable unprecedented transmission cost-efficiency for broadcasters, while using NEOTIONs patented MPEG-4 Pocket Decoder Technology, that is ideally tailored to address the issue of viewers with legacy equipment.
GlobeCast, a subsidiary of France Telecom, anticipates the roll out from 2006 onwards of numerous newer generation secured platforms in Europe where MPEG-4 is gaining tremendous momentum. Furthermore, GlobeCast will be capable of delivering TV channels to the MPEG-4 platforms over its global transmission network that includes 15 teleports and technical operations centers on five continents, as well as via a global ATM fiber ring that interconnects GlobeCasts facilities worldwide.
At the other side of this turnkey solution is the NEOTION Pocket decoder, a credit card sized MPEG-4 decoder that can take advantage, in a real plug & play mode, of the millions of DVB-CI legacy MPEG-2 set-top boxes already deployed. Beyond upgrading those digital receivers with the best-of-breed codec technology available today, it will also feature advanced conditional access capabilities and support.
The genuine combination of GlobeCasts MPEG-4 AVC distribution platforms, alongside with NEOTIONs plug-n-play MPEG-4 Pocket Decoders, opens a wide scope of benefits for TV operators, including: Pure Home Cinema DVD quality at a very low bit rate; unbeatable cost optimization for worldwide TV coverage; affordable Direct To Home transmission costs for new Digital TV market entrants; efficient VOD both in streaming and push modes.
Through this joint MPEG-4 AVC offer, GlobeCast and NEOTION will make a significant contribution to the evolving digital television industry. For the first time, a new service will enable audiences to receive better quality sound and images, as well as an increased choice in the number of channels whilst addressing TV programmers priorities such as delivery costs, audience ratings and anti-piracy issues.
«Our NEOTION Processor 4 will be available through patented module and cartridge implementations readily compatible with millions of existing digital satellite receivers already deployed in consumer homes» commented Jean Yves Le Roux, President and Founder of NEOTION. « We were the first satellite services provider to implement MPEG-2 technology for our customers and we are very proud now to be the first to propose a complete MPEG-4 AVC solution with our partner NEOTION» concluded Christian Pinon, CEO of GlobeCast.
