Russia's Largest Cable Operator Selects Harmonic for Digital Video and On-Demand Services Rollout

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
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National Cable Networks Transitions Moscow Operations to Digital, Will Offer New State-of-the-Art VOD and Network DVR Service

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ:HLIT) today announced that National Cable Networks (NCN) has selected the full range of Harmonic’s market-leading compression, video processing, edgeQAM and on-demand solutions for NCN’s new service. The new deployment will enable NCN to provide its 700,000 customers throughout Moscow with a highly attractive service package, encompassing digital television as well as advanced services such as video-on-demand (VOD) and network-based digital video recording (DVR). With over 4.5 million subscribers nationwide, NCN is Russia’s largest cable operator.

NCN is deploying a hybrid cable and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture for the delivery of its digital and on-demand offering. Downstream content will be delivered over NCN’s HFC network, using the versatile NSG™ 9000 universal edgeQAM for broadcast services. NCN’s premium programming and interactive services such as VOD, as well as upstream data, will be delivered over IP.

NCN’s digital broadcast television service will be powered by Harmonic’s DiviCom® Ion™ encoders. Harmonic’s CLEARcut™ offline content preparation software in conjunction with the market-leading Electra™ standard and high definition encoders are being utilized to create on-demand assets, and the ProStream™ 1000 stream processing platform with Mentor™ re-encoding technology is used for bit-rate “clamping” of the network DVR content. Harmonic’s Armada® Content Delivery Network (CDN) and StreamLiner® video servers are used for VOD asset distribution and delivery.

“Harmonic’s broad solution set makes it possible for NCN to offer its customers a high quality digital television line-up, and services such as VOD and network DVR that provide an enhanced, more personalized user experience,” said Victor Pinchuk, CEO, National Cable Networks. “We are investing in a unique network architecture that can be cost-effectively expanded to support additional services, enabling NCN to remain at the forefront of television in Russia. Harmonic played a key role in NCN’s successful rollout of St. Petersburg’s first digital cable service, and Harmonic was the clear choice for our Moscow upgrade.”

“Harmonic is firmly committed to enabling innovative services for leading operators such as NCN,” said Serguei Lakham, Regional Director of Russia and CIS for Harmonic Inc. “A significant portion of Harmonic’s versatile and highly scalable on-demand product line has been selected for NCN’s deployment. The VOD system combined with the high quality compression and stream processing capabilities of our IP-based headend solution offer NCN an integrated platform for provisioning of superior quality, advanced video services.”

Harmonic’s comprehensive portfolio of digital video solutions encompasses the complete video delivery chain — from asset creation and video stream processing to distribution, delivery and network management for broadcast and on-demand services.