Live television coverage in excess of 96 hours during the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament, was successfully beamed via the Europe*Star 1 satellite to Telemedia in Johannesburg and then forwarded to both M-Net and the SABC for broadcast to SA`s soccer fans.
Telemedia`s director of satellite operations Sam Clark says the reception of the signals went off without a hitch during the two-week long tussle for Africa`s premier soccer honours being played in Tunisia.
All 32 games, each lasting 180 minutes, plus unilateral news feeds, were broadcast. Telemedia transmitted the signals via optical fibre to M-Net and SABC-TV.
Clark said Europe*Star 1 was chosen for the satellite feed because of its high quality and reliability of transmission. "It`s a hot satellite. We`ve used it often before and we have never been let down."
The main transmission out of Tunisia was received in Paris, France and then uplinked to Europe*Star 1, for enpasse to SA.
Europe*Star`s regional director for Africa, Roy Ingle, says Europe*Star 1 is ideally positioned as the "contribution satellite of choice" for the South African market, and it regularly transmits feeds from news and sports broadcasters, concerts and special events.
Last November Europe*Star sent coverage to the world of the international star-studded concert held in Cape Town in aid of former president Nelson Mandela`s action on AIDS campaign.
It was also the satellite of choice for the live broadcast to 50 million people of the International India Film Academy, or Indian Oscars, beamed from the Dome, in Northgate, Johannesburg.
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Europe*Star is a satellite owner-operator, offering capacity on its geostationary communications satellites. The company leases whole and fractional transponders on a full-time and occasional use basis, for use with a broad range of satellite communications services including television, Internet, telephony and corporate networking.
Brought into service at the start of 2001, the innovative Europe*Star 1 satellite has five high-performance beams covering Europe, southern Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. Its Europe*Star B satellite provides additional capacity for markets in Central and Eastern Europe.
An Alcatel company, Europe*Star is headquartered in London, with regional marketing offices in Cape Town and New Delhi. Europe*Star also operates its own mission control centre in Toulouse, for tracking, telemetry and control of the satellites.
For more information, visit http://www.europestar.com.
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