A MediaStar distribution system developed by Cabletime will lie at the heart of the broadcast feed to hundreds of journalists in England and Scotland during the visit to the UK by Pope Benedict XVI this week.

The MediaStar Pro system has been utilised by Feltech, the specialists in live event media facilities, to deliver coverage from the BBC, ITN and Sky, live as it unfolds. Between 400 and 500 accredited journalists are expected to use the Media Centre facilities, located in London’s QE2 Conference Centre, and a temporary dedicated marquee situated in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh.

Feltech has based the distribution of the live footage on MediaStar Pro, which is designed to deliver high quality video in real time to a large number of displays. During the Papal visit the system will serve 112 screens in the London Media Centre and 80 in Edinburgh. Feltech will also overlay captions to further enhance the broadcast coverage.

Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow, 16th September, and will be received at the Palace of Holyrood House by Her Majesty The Queen. During his visit he will celebrate a public Mass in Glasgow, a Prayer Vigil at Hyde Park in London and Mass at Cofton Park in Birmingham. He leaves on Sunday 19th September.

Peter Fell, Managing Director at Feltech, said: “We are accustomed to hosting the press centres at large international events, having been involved in a number of high profile political summits, and we have used MediaStar Pro many times. The major benefits of the system are its reliability and stability when it really counts. It is the only system of its kind that we would use in a critical installation like the Papal visit, where the world’s media are reliant on the delivery of up-to-the-minute broadcast coverage.�

The MediaStar range, which has a strong, established heritage, includes TV/AV and multimedia delivery products for use over Cat-5/UTP and IP infrastructures, providing solutions for live TV, corporate communications, multicasts, music TV, training and digital signage.