Arqiva delivers Metropolitan Opera live to European cinemas

8th May 2008

Arqiva has completed its second season of live High Definition (HD) transmissions of ‘The Met: Live in HD' into European cinemas. Building on last season's success (reaching an additional global audience of about 325,000) Arqiva's transmission of the 2007-8 season enabled sell-out audiences to experience eight star-studded performances in cinemas across Europe. Donizetti's ‘La Fille du Regiment' was the final screening of the season on 26 April. The total attendance for this season of live transmissions was expected to top 900,000 people worldwide.

Arqiva receives the live HD signal from the Atlantic Bird 1 satellite and then re-transmits to the Intelsat 10-02 and Atlantic Bird 3 satellites for live distribution into cinemas in the UK, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France and other European countries. A Metropolitan Opera representative monitors the transmission from within the MCR of Arqiva's Winchester Teleport providing hands-on real-time communication between the Met and Arqiva's specialist team.

Arqiva's solution also includes on-screen local language subtitling for participating European countries, negating the need for multiple transmissions from the US. The HD screenings incorporate Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound for maximum impact and include live interviews and special features. Arqiva provides cost-effective recording and storage of all the HD content for future re-purposing.

Performances transmitted by Arqiva included Gounod's ‘Roméo et Juliette' (15 December), Humperdink's ‘Hansel and Gretel' (1 January), Verdi's ‘Macbeth' (12 January), Puccini's ‘Manon Lescaut' (16 February), Britten's ‘Peter Grimes' (15 March), Wagner's ‘Tristan und Isolde' (22 March), Puccini's ‘La Bohème' (5 April) and Donizetti's ‘La Fille Du Regiment' (26 April).

Barrie Woolston, commercial director at Arqiva's Satellite Media Solutions division, said: "Digital Cinema is an exciting new medium which presents very important opportunities to live event organisers and exhibitors. As well as enabling organisers to expand their audience reach all around the world, the growing popularity of experiencing alternative content on the big screen can significantly drive revenues across an exhibitor's network. Arqiva has considerable experience in the live HD broadcast of alternative content to digitally enabled cinemas and we are proud to have been entrusted with this high profile and prestigious project for the Met."

Matthew Ivey, director of Occasional Video & Data at Arqiva, added: "The ability to reliably deliver live opera performances in High Definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is crucial in ensuring that the audience experience is as close to real life as possible. Meeting the highly exacting standards of this world-class institution has been an interesting challenge for Arqiva and we look forward to building on our strong relationship with the Metropolitan Opera next season."