Harmonic and Intelsat to Launch a UHD Demo Channel in North America

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS--(Marketwired - September 08, 2015) - As consumer demand for Ultra High Definition (UHD) content and televisions continues to grow, Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT), the worldwide leader in video delivery infrastructure, and Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), the world's leading provider of satellite services, today announced a partnership to launch HVN Intelsat UHD, a linear UHD demonstration channel for the North American TV markets.

This channel will be broadcast via Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite located at 127°W, and will provide multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) with an opportunity to prepare and test their UHD transmissions from the moment that they start downlinking content from Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite through their own networks and into the subscribers' homes. This platform will also be available to U.S. cable programmers to conduct their own testing of UHD content. Since Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite has 76 HD channels and reaches 98percent of the cable headends in the continental U.S., it creates an ideal environment for further enhancing the end-to-end delivery of UHD content to consumers.

Harmonic and Intelsat plan to demonstrate the HVN Intelsat UHD channel content at IBC2015 at the RAI Convention Center in Amsterdam, from Sept. 11-15. Utilizing an end-to-end UHD video processing system from Harmonic, Intelsat will transmit live and linear 2160p60 (HEVC Main 10 profile) video content via C-band on the Intelsat Galaxy 13 satellite. The content will then travel from Intelsat's Atlanta, Georgia, teleport facility using the IntelsatOne^® IP/MPLS network to Intelsat's Fuchsstadt, Germany, teleport facility, where it will be uplinked via Ku-band on the Intelsat 905 satellite located at 335.5°E, and received and decoded at the RAI Convention Center in Amsterdam.

The initial commissioning test signal will leverage transport stream servers located at Intelsat's teleport facility in Atlanta, and Harmonic's ProMedia™ Xpress multiscreen transcoder and packager for precompression of the UHD video loop. Later this year, Harmonic will deploy its MediaGrid shared storage system, Polaris™ playout management suite, Spectrum™ X advanced media server system and Electra™ X3 advanced media processor to enable full UHD channel production and transmission from the company's HVN Center in San Jose, California. That signal will then be uplinked in Intelsat's teleport facility in Atlanta via Intelsat's Galaxy 13 satellite.