Eutelsat launches its first 4K service with HDR

Travelxp 4K, the world's first commercial 4K HDR channel, will launch on October 1 via Eutelsat's Hotbird satellite.

Available in English, Spanish, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and Dutch, it will begin broadcasting on October 1 through the Eutelsat Travelxp 4K Hotbird satellite. The channel will initially feature one hundred hours of travel programs filmed around the world. The 4K version of the Travelxp brand follows the success of Travelxp HD, which offers 100% original premium travel and lifestyle programs distributed to more than 50 million homes worldwide.

Travelxp 4K is encoded in HEVC and High Dynamic Range (HDR) with the Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) standard, which was developed by the BBC and NHK. The HLG standard allows standard dynamic range (SDR) televisions to display an Ultra HD image (in SDR mode).

Travelxp 4K CEO Prashant Chothani highlighted that "we started testing Eutelsat's Hotbird at the beginning of the year and kept it free to allow operators and hardware vendors to access an HLG HDR content signal. As the world's first 4K HDR channel, we are extremely grateful to all the partners, vendors and stakeholders who have made this happen. Quality is at the forefront of Travelxp 4K and viewers are going to be delighted with the quality of the content we have produced.”