TANDBERG Television's new RX8320 ATSC Broadcast Receiver is the recipient of a 2008 STAR Award presented by the editorial staff of TV Technology magazine at the NAB2008 convention.

The STAR Award is designed to celebrate and showcase the outstanding technological innovations available to the broadcast industry. A panel of judges consisting of TV Technology editors and columnists reviewed a variety of products, examined the technical applications and their overall contribution to the industry, and then submitted their award nominees.

As local terrestrial broadcasters in the US begin to phase out their analog broadcasts, the cable, telco and satellite operators who receive these local channels as content feeds need to deal with the transition to an all-digital ATSC environment. TANDBERG Television's RX8320 ATSC Broadcast Receiver with 8-VSB input is specifically designed to enable a simple, reliable solution to the ATSC broadcast transition for these operators.

Harmonic announced that SES AMERICOM has certified the use of the DiviCom Electra 7000 HD MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders and the Ion AVC SD encoders for compression of local channels in the IP-PRIME IPTV distribution platform. The multi-channel encoding systems from Harmonic offer a cost-effective solution for telcos across the United States utilizing the IP-PRIME service to seamlessly add high quality, low bit-rate local broadcast SD and HD TV channels for distribution to subscribers.

Harmonic and CANALSAT have expanded its ADSL video service with MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) based digital video solutions from Harmonic. The DiviCom Electra 7000 HD and Electra 5400 SD high density encoders enable CANALSAT to provide viewers with superior quality video at ultra-low bit-rates. Using the Harmonic solution, CANALSAT can enhance its service portfolio to meet increasing demand for HD programming, expand the SD channel lineup and increase the number of households that have access to its ADSL video service.

The CANAL+ Group distributes more than 300 television channels to viewers in France via multiple platforms, including digital terrestrial television, direct-to-home satellite, ADSL and mobile phone subscription services. CANALSAT is one of the world’s largest aggregated DSL service providers, delivering programming to consumers through several major telecommunications operators’ networks.

TANDBERG Television's OpenStream Digital Services Platform has been selected by Tianjin TEDA Cable TV to expand its cable TV offering into VOD and network personal video recorder services. Tianjin TEDA Cable already provides digital cable TV services to the people of Tianjin TEDA using a TANDBERG Television head-end and network control solution. Now the operator is rolling out a state-of-the-art VOD system, based on TANDBERG Television’s market leading OpenStream Digital Services Platform with real-time ingest for nPVR. As part of the contract, TANDBERG Television has also provided its Xport on-demand content production software system. The deal extends TANDBERG Television’s presence in China and confirms the company’s market leadership in open systems VOD platforms.

Harmonic announced that PCCW has deployed Harmonic’s market-leading DiviCom Electra 7000 HD MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders to power its HD channel service in Hong Kong. PCCW is a telecommunications service provider offering a full complement of video, voice, data and mobile services to its customers across Hong Kong, and operates now TV, Hong Kong’s largest IPTV service with over 882,000 subscribers. PCCW also utilizes Harmonic’s SD encoders to deliver its full lineup of more than 150 broadcast channels, as well as Harmonic’s VOD servers and software.

Harmonic's new DiviCom Ion AVC standard definition encoder has successfully completed encoder conformance testing for the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia software platform. The test was administered by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Mediaroom Interoperability and Qualification Lab program, which is intended to enable the ongoing interoperability and compliance of encoders used in deployments of Microsoft Mediaroom. A Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem partner, Harmonic powers the video headends for a majority of Microsoft’s IPTV customers. Harmonic delivers over 5,000 broadcast video channels around the world to more than four million IPTV subscribers, and counts more than 100 telco operators as its customers.

TANDBERG's Television iPlex UltraCompression IPTV video processing and transcoding system has been selected by du, the Dubai-based telco, as the head-end for its IPTV services. du is the United Arab Emirates newest telecommunications company, launched in February 2007, already amassing over 1.5 million customers.

The innovative multilingual du IPTV service offers TV channels from the UAE and around the world, catering to the tastes of different nationalities and cultures. du offers more than 15 Premium TV packages, in 18 different languages from content aggregators and providers worldwide, providing UAE’s consumers with a wide choice of TV programming, including live sporting events, from around the world. TANDBERG Television’s broadcast expertise and its award-winning iPlex UltraCompression high definition and standard definition video processing and transcoding system provides du with a range of advanced features including bandwidth savings, industry leading density and improved picture quality

Microsoft and BT announced they are bringing together the next-generation TV service BT Vision with Microsoft's Xbox 360 games and entertainment system. All BT broadband customers will have the unique opportunity to receive the best in high-definition gaming, television and movies through an Xbox 360 console, in a powerful, all-in-one entertainment experience. BT Vision, which is powered by the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform, plans to make this first-of-its-kind device and service offering available to customers in the middle of 2008. The announcement was made during the keynote address by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Microsoft President Robbie Bach of the Entertainment & Devices Division at 2008 International CES.

Kordia and TVWorks have selected TANDBERG Television for its industry leading digital terrestrial television head-end system for the delivery of the Freeview New Zealand DTT service. New Zealand’s Freeview digital terrestrial network will deploy the latest MPEG-4 AVC solutions to provide around 75% of New Zealanders with a new HDTV service, as well as SD programming. Trials are set to commence early December, with a launch date set for early next year. Freeview New Zealand is a free-to-air digital TV service, currently transmitting standard definition programming in MPEG-2 across the country via a satellite direct to home platform.

TANDBERG Television announces at Telco TV 2007 that Midwest TEL NET has selected the award-winning TANDBERG iPlex video processing platform to deliver high quality video to its subscribers. By providing a flexible, high density IPTV head-end with the industry’s leading picture quality performance, the TANDBERG iPlex will enable Midwest TEL NET to offer consumers a number of channels in high definition video using MPEG-4 AVC video compression.

ATEMET announces that French television broadcaster M6 has standardized its IPTV encoding platform around the ATEME KyrionT H.264 solution. M6 can now deploy 9 SD channels and its HD channel M6 HD directly through ADSL. The entire ADSL encoding head-end has been standardized on Kyrion to achieve the best-possible quality and bandwidth efficiency.

Harmonic announces that Portugal Telecom has deployed Harmonic’s market-leading DiviCom Electra MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders to power its meo nationwide IPTV service. The digital video headend includes the Electra 7000 high definition encoders and Electra 5400 standard definition encoders, and was implemented at Portugal Telecom by Novabase/OctalTV, a leading video system integrator in Portugal. The Harmonic solution seamlessly delivers high quality broadcast video including picture-in-picture and is a component of the Microsoft MediaRoom multimedia and IPTV software platform as part of an overall system designed and integrated by Alcatel-Lucent.

TANDBERG Television announces that its iPlex UltraCompression IPTV head-end has been selected by Swisscom for the next step of its Bluewin IPTV service. Swisscom and TANDBERG Television commenced their collaboration with the trial of the Bluewin IPTV system in autumn 2004, followed by commercial deployment in November 2006. Now the companies are working together to ensure that Swisscom can continue to provide a world-class IPTV service to it customers, through leveraging TANDBERG Television’s broadcast expertise and its award-winning iPlex UltraCompression high definition and standard definition system. The solution offers a range of advanced video processing features with bandwidth improvements of up to 50%, industry leading density and improved video quality.

TANDBERG Television announces that its iPlex UltraCompression IPTV head-end has been selected by Swisscom for the next step of its Bluewin IPTV service. Swisscom and TANDBERG Television commenced their collaboration with the trial of the Bluewin IPTV system in autumn 2004, followed by commercial deployment in November 2006. Now the companies are working together to ensure that Swisscom can continue to provide a world-class IPTV service to it customers, through leveraging TANDBERG Television’s broadcast expertise and its award-winning iPlex UltraCompression high definition and standard definition system. The solution offers a range of advanced video processing features with bandwidth improvements of up to 50%, industry leading density and improved video quality.

Harmonic announced support for high definition 1080p encoding at 24 frames per second on its market-leading MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoder, the DiviCom Electra 7000. Today, seven of the ten largest satellite operators worldwide utilize Harmonic’s compression systems, and the majority of these customers have selected the Electra 7000 to power their HD H.264 services. Harmonic also announced that it will showcase its next generation H.264 compression technology for 1080p at 60 or 50 fps -- currently the most advanced HD technology available -- in the world’s first public demonstration at IBC 2007.