[SatBroadcasting(tm)] GlobeCast has renewed and expanded its contract with IMG Sports Media Production, a division of global sports and media company IMG Worldwide, in a three year deal to provide HD coverage of up to six English Premier League (EPL) football matches per week and an incomplete highlights package to rightsholders across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

As a result, GlobeCast has made a significant investment in MPEG4 upgrades for its two UK sites. Before the start of the 2010/11 season in August, GlobeCast installed dual dark fibres, channelized to take 16 HDSDI feeds, between IMG and their Technical Operations Center (TOC) in Central London. This new link, which is capable of receiving up to eight simultaneous redundant feeds, has enabled GlobeCast to take all matches in uncompressed HD before multiplexing them with MPEG4 compression through an Ericsson nCompass 6 multiplexer for delivery to satellite.

For broadcast across Asia and Europe, all six feeds are uplinked to the IS904 and W2A satellites respectively for downlink by rightsholders across the region. For the Americas, all feeds are converted using Snell & Wilcox HD Alchemist frame-rate converters, before being uplinked to Intelsat's IS9 satellite. Several match feeds are also being sent via the GlobeCast Backbone Network (GCBN) for playout in Hong Kong. This dynamic MPEG4 multiplex solution allows GlobeCast to easily uplink the feeds directly out of its central London facility or from its teleport in Brookman's Park. GlobeCast will also be delivering incomplete highlights packages of the games to rightsholders 30 minutes after the match feeds finish. GlobeCast has worked with IMG for the delivery of EPL matches since 2007.