TANDBERG Television Boosts Economics of Cable VOD, Broadcast TV and Broadband

Company uses ANGA to demonstrate market leading innovations including next-generation MPEG-2 and Direct-to-TV VOD

SOUTHAMPTON, UK — TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group (NASDAQ:ERIC), will use ANGA Cable to demonstrate the continuing technology innovation that has made the company a market leader for cable VOD and video compression and turnaround. Visitors to Stand D49 can see new solutions that dramatically improve the economics of delivering advanced cable services, including the world’s most powerful and high density MPEG-2 SD broadcast encoder and a Direct-to-TV VOD solution that enables the deployment of advanced on-demand and time-shift services without the need for set-top boxes.

TANDBERG Television will unveil an improved Packaged Cable Solution that enables the fast introduction of digital TV services, now including VOD, with minimal integration, and highlight how the EQ8096 Dense Universal EdgeQAM lets operators deliver faster broadband and expand on-demand services at lower cost.

“At this year’s ANGA, TANDBERG Television is highlighting a range of solutions that make it easier to deploy and expand advanced digital cable services,” says Edward Allfrey, business development director, cable, TANDBERG Television. “Many of them have a dramatic impact on capex and opex for broadband, broadcast TV and on-demand. We are also pointing the way ahead to new revenue opportunities through advanced advertising, and towards further service differentiation thanks to compelling connected home applications.”

TANDBERG Television’s highlights at ANGA Cable Show 2009 are:

NEW: EN8100 MPEG-2 SD encoder
ANGA represents the European debut for the new EN8100 MPEG-2 SD encoder that took NAB by storm. TANDBERG Television will demonstrate how a 15-30% improvement in MPEG-2 compression efficiency can free bandwidth for new services like broadband, on-demand and HDTV. Visitors to Stand D49 can see how the EN8100 enables cable operators to fit 25 SD channels in a single 50Mbps transport stream, which is typically double what they would achieve with a transrating solution.

The EN8100 is the world’s most powerful, high density (6 channels per 1RU) MPEG-2 broadcast encoder, using radically new techniques to deliver the biggest improvement to MPEG-2 performance in five years. It is ideal for making SD MPEG-2 look acceptable on large flat panel TVs. The EN8100 consumes 50% less power than previous models. TANDBERG Television has shown that next-generation MPEG-2 with the EN8100 should be used ahead of plant upgrades, digital terminal adaptors and analog tier switch-off as an option for bandwidth reclamation.

NEW: Packaged Cable Solution with VOD
The Packaged Cable Solution provides high levels of pre-integration to minimize start-up effort for smaller cable operators deploying digital TV. This product has been updated with the inclusion of a small market Video-on-Demand solution based on the latest low cost client technology, the RX8315 professional integrated receiver decoder and the EQ8096 Dense Universal EdgeQAM.

Direct-to-TV VOD services solution using CI Plus
This innovative VOD solution uses the new CI Plus standard to enable operators to deliver advanced VOD including Start-over TV, Catch-up TV and network PVR functionality (including live TV pause) direct to standard TV receivers without the need for set-top boxes. For many cable operators who have not deployed on-demand services, this solution can make on-demand services viable for the first time due to reduced capex and opex.

Connected Home Gateway
The Ericsson Connected Home Gateway, which is being demonstrated at ANGA, enables compelling new consumer experiences yet simplifies service delivery and reduces operator costs. This product enables content sharing of operator provided content in the home network and means cable subscribers can enjoy remote access to media stored in the home from anywhere, and on any device. It supports a complete multi-service offering for full service broadband and acts as a single entry-point for all services.

EQ8096 Dense Universal EdgeQAM
The EQ8096 can support broadcast TV, VOD, SDV and DOCSIS 3.0 services on the same edge device. As part of an M-CMTS architecture, it removes QAM modulation from the CMTS and so reduces the cost of delivering DOCSIS video, VoIP and data services. In the broadcast arena, the EQ8096 greatly reduces the complexity of small Central Headends and Regional Headends and can be used as a single device for all multiplexing, CA and regional insertion requirements.

Advanced Advertising for Time-Shifted Programs
TANDBERG Television will outline how cable operators can monetize time-shifted programming with targeted advertising, and why targeting and improved visibility of viewer behaviour in a time-shift environment enables cable operators to give advertisers the same benefits they enjoy on the Internet. Ericsson and TANDBERG Television will discuss how they can provide dynamic ad insertion and ad swapping into live, time-shifted program streams, including targeted ads.