ORLANDO, Fla. -- TANDBERG Television, a leading supplier of open solutions for digital broadcasting and broadband, today announced the world’s first, live demonstration together with Broadcom Corporation, a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions for broadband communications, of an end-to-end advanced encoding solution supporting high definition (HD) MPEG-4 part 10 (H.264/AVC). This allows broadcast companies to upgrade their networks today with advanced video compression technology. The two companies will showcase interoperability between Broadcom’s set-top box decoder reference platform and TANDBERG Television’s EN5990 video encoder, both the world’s first real-time, decoding and encoding platforms for MPEG-4 part 10. Support for MPEG-4 part 10 allows broadcasters to offer high definition services, which in turn, provides significant cost and business advantages. The demonstration, depicting end-to-end delivery from headend to the set-top box, is taking place this week within Broadcom’s booth at International CES, Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall 4, Booth #35768.

The interoperability between the TANDBERG Television and Broadcom® solutions results in a complete solution that reduces the required bandwidth for HD transmission by up to half when compared against MPEG-2 performance. Most HD channels today use between 12 to 18 Megabytes per second (MB/s) when employing MPEG-2 technology. The integrated TANDBERG/Broadcom solution allows operators to transmit high definition programming at up to half that rate resulting in a substantial capacity change. This type of dramatic bit-rate reduction enables broadcasters with restricted bandwidth architecture to increase their HD channel count using more efficient transmission.

Additionally, TANDBERG Television also supports the advanced profile of VC-1 (the proposed SMPTE standard based on Windows® Media Video 9 for high definition broadcast). TANDBERG’s EN5980 is the world’s first real-time, high definition video encoder for Windows Media 9 Series advanced compression.

“The interoperability we can now demonstrate between Broadcom and TANDBERG Television’s products, supporting MPEG-4 part 10, is a breakthrough solution that clearly shows a more economic delivery method for HDTV,” explained Roger Bolton, Business Development Director, TANDBERG Television. “The integration of our technologies will serve as a catalyst for broadcasters worldwide looking to offer high definition services which we can now offer as a turnkey delivery system today. This further proves Broadcom’s and TANDBERG’s long-term commitment to the MPEG-4 AVC platform.”

“This cooperative demonstration between Broadcom and TANDBERG Television represents a significant milestone in the industry for the future delivery of HDTV programs to consumers,” said Brian Sprague, Broadcom’s Senior Director of Marketing for Set-Top Boxes. “The availability of an end-to-end interoperable MPEG-4 AVC solution demonstrates to broadcasters that the equipment is available today to upgrade their networks to this advanced video compression technology, offering them significant cost and business advantages.”

Tandberg Television

Broadcom Corp.