Equipment manufacturer Panasonic has been made an official partner of Eurosport HD, the simulcast sport channel that launches on Sky this week.

The combined objective for both companies will be to associate HDTV sets from Panasonic with the sports offered by Eurosport HD during major sporting occasions.

As part of the deal, Eurosport HD will use Panasonic HPX2100 and HVX201 high-definition cameras for coverage of the Olympic Games.

Jacques Raynaud, vice chairman of Eurosport Group, said: "We share a common vision. We aim to deliver a new dimension in sports to viewers in as many HDTV-equipped homes as possible and in as many countries where Eurosport is broadcast, to 112 million homes and 59 territories across Europe."

Eurosport launches in high definition in the UK on the Sky satellite platform on Tuesday July 15. The new channel will take up EPG position number 412 and becomes the 19th dedicated HD channel on Sky.

Eurosport HD, a simulcast service of Eurosport International, is a multi-lingual HD sports channel offering more than 140 different sports. It launched around Europe on May 25 with the opening of play at the Grand Slam tennis tournament the French Open.

Content is a mixture of content shot in HD and content shot in SD that is up-rezzed to HD.

The AJ-HPX2100 is a shoulder-mounted tapeless camcorder which records 1080i/720p in both SD and HD to P2 memory cards.

Panasonic has been the official supplier of broadcast technology in all Olympic venues and at the Olympic Broadcast Centre since 1988.

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be the first to be produced entirely in HD.