SOUTHAMPTON, U.K. -- TANDBERG Television (Oslo:TAT) today announced that its award-winning high definition (HD) MPEG-4 AVC video encoding and distribution system has been chosen by leading French satellite pay-TV operator CANALSAT for the launch of its HD service. The CANALSAT HD service starts later this month with the broadcast of the National Geographic Channel HD.

To deliver its HDTV service, CANALSAT has deployed a TANDBERG Television HD video head-end with statistical multiplexing and TANDBERG EN5990 HD MPEG-4 AVC encoders. The use of TANDBERG Television's first-to-market MPEG-4 AVC encoding systems will enable CanalSat to achieve very efficient HD bandwidth utilization, more than halving the bit-rate required by HD MPEG-2, while at the same time achieving the high picture quality that a HDTV service demands.

"HDTV is a reality and as more and more content becomes available in HD format we are committed to ensuring that our subscribers enjoy a rich and varied choice of HDTV programming. TANDBERG Television's commitment to HD MPEG-4 AVC means that we can launch HD with high bandwidth efficiency and take advantage of the benefits of advanced statistical multiplexing as our service grows," says Christophe Hennequin, Technical Manager of CANALSAT.

Supporting CANALSAT's HDTV launch is further validation of TANDBERG Television's technology and market lead in the advanced compression arena and builds on the company's growing list of global HD deployments of its first-to-market HD Intelligent Compression Engine. For CANALSAT's HD roll-out, TANDBERG Television has designed a redundant system based on the TANDBERG EN5990 HD AVC Encoder and TANDBERG Reflex(TM) statistical multiplexing. The TANDBERG EN5990 has been created for real-time TV delivery environments that need the highest quality encoding combined with the industry's highest quality of service (QoS) levels and takes advantage of more than 10 years of digital compression system development.

"We are delighted to have been chosen by CANALSAT for this important HDTV roll-out in France. High Definition is taking TV viewing to a new level and is without doubt a key service differentiator for pay-TV operators like CANALSAT," says Eric Baron, president of TANDBERG Television EMEA. "Our market lead and global experience in HD advanced compression systems means that we are uniquely placed to provide advanced systems that enable our customers, such as CANALSAT, to confidently roll-out HD business models today."

Tandberg Television