TV2 Denmark selects Eutelsat’s NewsSpotter service

Pascale Paoli-Lebailly | 08-09-2012

Danish broadcaster TV2 is diversifying its satellite news gathering capabilities with Eutelsat's NewsSpotter service. The service was successfully used by TV2 for live reporting of recent key events in France and the UK, and the Danish broadcaster now plans to continue to integrate it into its outside broadcasting infrastructure.

TV2 currently operates two NewsSpotter Fly-Away systems with a third to be shortly delivered.

In Paris to cover both rounds of the French presidential elections, TV2 used a 3-camera production team and the NewsSpotter service to transmit live images from a rooftop.

The TV2 news team also rented a small car in Paris and mounted the NewsSpotter antenna onto the vehicle, parking it alongside regular satellite communication trucks.

"NewsSpotter is like having cable ADSL in your pocket" explained Morten Brandstrup, head of news technology at TV2 Denmark.

Compact to be carried in a back-pack for Fly-Away use and small enough to be fitted onto a small car for rooftop mounting, NewsSpotter can instantly connect mobile news crews to studios for transmission of live recordings, images and data.

Providing native IP connectivity, NewsSpotter is integrated for the workflows of modern newsgathering operations. It is is available across the footprint of Eutelsat's KA-SAT's satellite that covers Europe, North Africa and large parts of the Middle East. The service is designed to transmit High Definition and/or Standard Definition live video at transmission speeds of up to 20Mbps.

NewsSpotter user terminals have been developed by multiple manufacturers in three versions: Fly-Away, Vehicular Compact and Vehicular Rugged.