Ultra HD in Asia

AsiaSat has taken great effort since 2014 to promote knowledge and awareness of Ultra HD in Asia. In January 2014, AsiaSat cooperated with Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited to demo a live Ultra HD broadcast through AsiaSat 3S. AsiaSat satellites also supported Ultra HD broadcast of international sporting events, for example, the first-ever live telecast of the 2014 FIFA World Cup matches held on 28 June (Round of 16), 4 July (Quarter-Final) and the Final on 13 July 2014 in Brazil, and live UHD coverage of major European soccer tournament and top tier soccer matches since 2016.

Furthermore, AsiaSat believes an in-depth knowledge on the actual performance of equipment and thorough understanding of different compression technologies will be highly beneficial for our customers to identify the best possible solution and the support they need. With that, AsiaSat joined hands with various partners and through its Ultra HD research laboratory to promote and accelerate the reception of Ultra HD content in Asia. The laboratory is tasked to evaluate end-to-end Ultra HD solutions including playout, compression technologies, compatibility of satellite transmission and reception, as well as different types of content through on-air satellite transmissions. A series of tests were successfully conducted using different HEVC encoding equipment, including off-line and real time solutions, in order to determine the optimum configuration and to understand the limitations of the existing systems.

These tests enabled AsiaSat to optimize the data rate required and understand how to provide the most effective solution to our customers. Furthermore, AsiaSat evaluated the user interfaces of different Ultra HD equipment such as file transcoder, playout, etc. to assess user friendliness of the equipment. AsiaSat will continue to test and evaluate new Ultra HD equipment in the AsiaSat research laboratory as they develop and provide update to the market.

In 2019, AsiaSat commenced broadcast of a new 24-hour 4K HDR TV channel 4KUNIVERSE on its most powerful satellite AsiaSat 9 for Asian audience. 4KUNIVERSE is a general entertainment channel airing wide-ranging UHD programming including entertainment series, docufilms, children's series and vegan cooking programmes.