Numericable to Offer 3D VoD

PARIS -- Cisco today announced that France-based cable service provider Numericable is building one of the world’s first High-Definition (HD) 3-D video-on-demand (VOD) service based on the Cisco ® Content Delivery System platform. The company originally deployed the platform to support VOD, catch-up TV and user-generated content services. The award-winning Cisco Content Delivery System provides Numericable with the innovation, flexibility and scale to expand its service offering as its 3.5 million TV customers start setting their sights on the third dimension.

Numericable’s new services will be some of the most ambitious and capable on the market thanks to its support of 3-D in high-definition resolution. Numericable will evolve its network into a powerful medianet – an all-Internet Protocol network optimized for rich media – which will allow the company to deploy a new HD 3-D VOD experience that surpasses any other 3-D service available today.

3-D TV is anticipated to be the next paradigm for home consumer entertainment. The media research company Screen Digest forecasts that 22 percent of TVs sold worldwide by 2014 will be 3-D capable. It is also anticipating that all major manufacturers of TV equipment will launch 3-D capable TV sets this year. True 3-D TV in high definition can require the transmission of the equivalent of two traditional 1080 line HD streams, consuming a minimum of 15 megabits per second of bandwidth, and Numericable’s fiber-optic cable network is well-equipped to support the demands of this service.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)