SVG Europe is very pleased to announce that Alessandro Reitano, Sky Deutschland vice president of sports production, has become the new chair of Sports Video Group Europe. He succeeds David Shield, IMG Media senior vice president and global director of engineering and technology, who has stepped down after five years at the helm.

Sky is a media brand that needs little or no introduction, and Sky Sports is a major part of that brand, with 11 dedicated sports channels providing in depth coverage of some of world’s biggest and best sporting competitions.

iPad support has been added to tOG-Sports. This allows use of the iPad as a hand held touchscreen device that delivers the full range of telestration, analysis and VT control that is featured in tOG Sports.

Sky Germany again has written History. On Sunday 14th March 2010 Sky has shown a live TV HD production in 3D. About 120 invited guests have followed the Bundesliga top game between Bayer Leverkusen and the Hamburger SV in 3D HD. Among the guests were Franz Beckenbauer, Matthias Sammer, Christian Nerlinger (Sports Director FC Bayern), Tom Bender (Managing Director DFL) and Producer Oliver Berben, all watching the game with the obligative 3D glases. All have been enthusiastic seeing the TV event of the future. The event was moderated by Jessica Kastrop.

Every FIFA World Cup™ is dif­ferent – in more ways than one, as Sky Italia Producer Da­miano Joli has discovered. “For me it is a very different expe­rience, in 2006 I exclusively followed the Italian team as producer for their matches,” explains Damiano. “Here it is a completely new experience, because I am Sky Italia’s main contact in South Africa. It has been a good challenge for me and I am finding it really exciting.”

T-VIPS, a global leader in professional video contribution and distribution solutions, today announced that its TVG425 MPEG Transport Stream and the TVG450 JPEG2000 Video Gateways have been selected to provide advanced video transport functionality for Sky Italia’s next generation contribution network.

With five million subscribers, Sky Italia is one of Europe’s leading media and entertainment companies and the largest pay TV provider in Italy. One of the biggest draws to the service is “X-Factor,” the award-winning TV music competition. A key part of the show is that the home viewing audience votes for their favorite performers, with the results tabulated and shared during live broadcasts. Given that viewer interactivity is the foundation of the experience, the technology driving the voting platform is mission-critical. 

National broadcasters from around the world are at the Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, for two weeks in February to bring their athletes’ stories to viewers in their home countries. When searching for studio space to anchor their multi-channel coverage, Italian broadcaster Sky Italia found space in an office building with expansive windows looking out on the Canadian city’s skyline.

Imagine Communications, empowering the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation, is working with Sky Italia through the company’s recently announced Open Zenium™ programme to enrich the European operator’s compression operations with the addition of artificial intelligence capabilities. The customisations, made possible through Open Zenium, are expected to enable Sky Italia to automatically optimize the quality of content and reduce costs through the insertion of machine learning directly into the data flow, bringing new and unique functionality to an existing product.

SKY Italia is the Italian pay-TV owned by News Corporation Limited. Although it was only launched in 2003, it already reaches 4,800,000 subscribers with 180 thematic and pay-per-view channels. This rapid expansion resulted in the need for a new site in Milan.

The Liga Mexicana del Pacífico (LMP), the Mexican Pacific League of baseball, has established a strategic alliance with SKY Mexico for the 2020-2021 season, with all games to be produced by the MEDIAPRO Group, using its state-of-the art technology. This new deal sets a precedent in Mexico, as the LMP becomes the first professional league in the country to boast standardized production at all its venues.

Main broadcaster of the recent rugby World championship hosted in New Zealand, SKY Television New Zealand, has implemented EVS’ specialist live production systems to provide the complete live video recording, replay, and content management infrastructure for the coverage of all matches in High Definition (HD).

Sky News Arabia, the sister channel of Sky News in the Middle East and North Africa, was officially launched this spring, powered by a fully integrated EVS workflow. The 24-hour Arabic news service broadcast out of Abu Dhabi from a state-of-the-art production facility.

Blackbird plc (AIM: BIRD), developer and seller of the market-leading cloud video editing platform, Blackbird, has been chosen by Sky News Arabia for remote and collaborative cloud video editing and publishing of digital news content. Sky News Arabia is a 24-hour Arabic news channel broadcast across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). With a free-to-air TV channel, digital and audio platforms, Sky News Arabia delivers analysis of both news from the Middle East and North Africa region and international news. The channel is broadcast to more than 50 million households in the MENA region.
 

Sky News Arabia, a joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), has announced today that it has signed a contract with tapeless technology specialist EVS to provide a fully integrated news production solution for the launch of the new 24/7 Arabic news channel.