To mark the 30th anniversary of France Télévisions' coverage of the French Open, the public broadcaster is offering its viewers a wonderful gift: free access to a 100% UHD event channel broadcast 24 hours a day on DTT and satellite.
France Télévisions and the French Tennis Federation, in collaboration with TDF and FRANSAT, a subsidiary of Eutelsat, will broadcast the Philippe-Chatrier court in 4K during the fortnight of the 2018 tournament. The matches will be filmed by France Télévisions' production department. For the public broadcaster, this event channel, which will be broadcast on a wider perimeter in 2018, is a further illustration of its strategy of technological innovation and optimized distribution to satisfy and reach all audiences.
Broadcast live from May 27 to June 10, the matches will be accessible :
- throughout France on channel 444 of the free FRANSAT satellite bouquet
- in Paris and Île-de-France*, as well as in Nantes and Toulouse on DTT channels 81 and 82 (channels 26, 35 and 29 respectively).
for all households equipped with a 4K/UHD-compatible TV**.
At this 2018 edition, Ateme was chosen to provide digital compression for the entire offering, and Zayo for its expertise in technical fiber transport of the signal.
UHD or 4K offers viewers unprecedented image quality and immersion: four times as many pixels as current high-definition TV, and twice as many frames per second.
This latest operation confirms that the migration to UHD is now well underway on an industrial level. The move to UHD (4K) is a key element in the modernization of DTT announced by the CSA ***.
* From the Eiffel Tower and the Chennevières, Meaux and Chaville sites.
** For DTT households, the TV set, whether "4K" or "UHD", must also be able to receive programs in DVB-T2 and HEVC.
FRANSAT viewers must also be equipped with a UHD-compatible TV set with a certified integrated satellite tuner and a CAM CI+ module (list available at https://www.fransat.fr/tv-compatibles ).
*** UHD technology is a key element of the CSA-led roadmap, published earlier this year, which aims to evolve the DTT platform in the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The UHD signal broadcast on DTT by TDF will be available, like all DTT programs, in the Molotov hybrid application for viewers equipped with a compatible Samsung UHD TV set connected to DTT and having installed Molotov, enabling them to view the UHD stream of images. This temporary broadcast underlines the Molotov platform's ability to exploit both DTT and UHD images, as well as the DTT platform's ability to distribute UHD content.
This year's UHD signal has the following technical characteristics:
-
UHD HDR HLG10 video format
Rendering then depends on your TV set:
- UHD HDR TVs in the 2017 and 2018 ranges (with an update) will display the optimum luminance (identical to that set in the OB unit) with much more faithful detail even in dark and brightly lit areas.
- The first 4K UHD TVs, which are generally non-HDR, will be able to display the program (backward compatibility) and benefit from UHD, but not optimally. There will be a slight loss of luminance and chromatic drift.
- Some UHD HDR TVs may display very dark images: we therefore recommend not viewing the UHD channel with these TVs, pending a corrective update.
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Audio 5.1
This sound component is compressed at 192kbits/second in DD+ format and can be received by all TV sets.
This experiment will enable us to fine-tune UHD camera and sound recording settings, as well as encoding and signaling parameters, in order to optimize rendering on UHD TV sets. Adjustments will be made throughout the fortnight of Roland Garros.