[Satnews] Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) announces NASA TV UHD, the first consumer Ultra HD (UHD) channel in North America, is now available.

Leveraging an end-to-end UHD delivery system from Harmonic, NASA's ambient video channel provides consumers with a wide array of out-of-this-world linear 2160p60 video content, capturing the breathtaking beauty of the space program.

Transmitted in the clear via the SES AMC-18C satellite, NASA TV UHD is remotely produced by Harmonic and jointly operated with NASA. Harmonic is currently in discussions with pay-TV operators to carry the channel on their satellite DTH, cable and optical networks. Tests are underway to enable consumption on a wide range of television and IP-connected devices. The channel will also be available for OTT streaming at a later date, to be determined.

To view the Harmonic NASA UHDTV video, please select this graphic.

NASA TV UHD consists of eight brand-new TV series designed to explore the various facets of NASA's space program. These include: "ISS Life," documenting life on the space station from the first-person perspective of the astronauts; "Earth View," the astronauts' unique perception of our planet; "Solar System," showing vibrant imagery of the earth's neighboring planets and the sun, including time-lapse videos using solar dynamics observatory images; "Deep Space," animated UHD still imagery captured from the Hubble telescope and other telescopic platforms; "NASA Classics," important highlights from NASA's history, such as the Apollo program; "Mars," an entire program dedicated to the intriguing red planet; "Liftoff," an up-close look at spacecraft launches, including rocket tests; and "Development," detailing the training and R&D efforts that take place before each NASA mission.

The NASA TV UHD uses an end-to-end solution that includes Harmonic's Ellipse® 3000 contribution encoder, ProView™ 7100 integrated receiver-decoder (IRD), MediaGrid shared storage system, Polaris™ playout management suite, Spectrum™ X advanced media server system, Electra™ X2 and Electra X3 advanced media processors, ProMedia® Origin packager and streaming video server and NSG™ Exo distributed CCAP system.

At the heart of the UHD workflow is Harmonic's Electra X3 advanced media processor, the industry's first converged media processor for UHD content with live, full-frame, full-GOP UHD encoding. Powered by the Harmonic PURE Compression Engine™, an advanced encoding technology that supports resolutions up to 2160p60 (HEVC Main 10) for broadcast and OTT multiscreen delivery, the Electra X3 enables superior video quality at minimum bandwidth.