France Télévisions confirms UHD Roland-Garros
May 25, 2018
By Colin Mann
Following the news that Eurosport is launching a new channel exclusively for the French Open at Roland-Garros with every match from the prestigious Philippe Chatrier centre court available in Ultra High Definition, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the coverage of the French Open by France Télévisions, the French public broadcaster has decided to offer its viewers free access to a 100 per cent UHD event channel broadcast 24 hours a day on DTT and satellite TV.
France Télévisions and the French Tennis Federation, in collaboration with broadcast transmission specialist TDF and free-to-air DTH service FRANSAT, a subsidiary of Eutelsat, will provide 4K coverage of the Philippe-Chatrier court during the two-week tournament. All matches will be captured by France Télévisions’ production channel.
Broadcast live from May 27th to June 10th, the matches will be aired:
- everywhere in France on channel 444 of the FRANSAT free-to-air satellite platform;
- in Paris and the Île-de-France region, as well as in Nantes and Toulouse on channels 81 or 82
to all homes equipped with a 4K/UHD compatible TV set.
For the 2018 tournament, Ateme has been selected to provide digital compression for the entire offer and Zayo for its expertise in fibre signal transport.
According to Eutelsat, the initiative confirms that the transition to UHD is now well underway at industrial level. The switch to UHD (4K) is a key component of the CSA’s planned modernisation of DTT.