TANDBERG Television Shows New, Open Digital Broadcast Solutions at NAB

 

 

 

 

OSLO, Norway, February 15, 2000--At NAB 2000, TANDBERG Television Inc., a leading supplier of open digital solutions, will be showing the worldwide broadcast industry new product developments showcased within real-life demonstrations of solutions for ATSC and DVB-T broadcasting, DSNG and Digital ENG, IP, and telco/fiber distribution and digital cable.

"This year's NAB will see the "new" TANDBERG Television with a much broader solutions offering for the global professional broadcast market than in the past, made possible by its October 1999 acquisition of NDS' digital broadcasting business. The combined business includes the world's largest range of professional receivers, the best range of encoders, DSNG and digital ENG, a complete range of solutions for transport stream processing, world beating modulators, the most flexible range of multiplexers, and the easiest to use control and monitoring solutions. We will make a big impact at NAB with new developments and the announcement of several new alliances, all of which will confirm our commitment to open solutions and innovation," says Arne Graae, CEO of TANDBERG Television.

New open, interoperable TANDBERG Television solutions to be shown at NAB include: The new evolution 5000 broadcast range TANDBERG Television will unveil an entirely new family of broadcast products at NAB. Branded evolution 5000, the new range enables content providers and broadcasters to take a total end-to-end approach or to pick and choose open, interoperable solutions from the TANDBERG Television range of high quality encoders, multiplexers, modulators, receivers/decoders and control software. The range is flexible and modular, providing solutions suited to DVB and ATSC broadcast standards as well as for contribution and distribution applications via telco/fiber (fixed links, SONET, ATM and IP), satellite and terrestrial distribution mediums.

New solutions for broadcasters on the move

TANDBERG Television is the recognized leader in MPEG digital SNG systems, with over 60% of the market and over 800 DSNG systems sold to date worldwide. Revolutionizing the way Outside Broadcast footage is delivered, TANDBERG Television invented and was first to market with a new solution for digital electronic news gathering (digital ENG) which uses digital terrestrial transmission COFDM technology (Editors' pick of show NAB'99).

At NAB, TANDBERG Television will show the new E5500 Digital Satellite News Gathering Encoder (DSNG), designed to provide all the functionality required for a multitude of Outside Broadcast applications. Housed in a 2RU chassis the E5500 is based on field-proven encoding and pre-processing technology. It delivers an easy-to-use feature set via the simple front panel push button control and LCD that includes low-latency modes, built-in frequency, agile QPSK modulation, SDI & Composite Video inputs, and high- and low-speed data inputs. The E5500 is software upgradeable to MPEG-2 4:2:2P@ML encoding and also includes the option to select a built-in, four-channel re-multiplexer and encryption modules. The TANDBERG range of encoders have time and time again been proven in field trials to inter-operate with a wide range of receiver products from a variety of equipment manufacturers. First shipments of the E5500 began in January 2000.

This year's NAB will also see the launch of TANDBERG's fully integrated 2RU digital ENG system, the E5100, combining MPEG-2 encoding and COFDM modulation for robust static and mobile event coverage without the common ghosting and multi-path problems associated with analog ENG systems in use today. Based on the same encoding platform as the DSNG, the E5100 will incorporate a fully integrated COFDM modulator card. TANDBERG's open approach to business and the modular design of its core products mean that radio equipment manufacturers will be able to design radio amplifier products to fit into the E5100's 2RU chassis to provide a fully integrated solution

Digital Cable

NAB will see TANDBERG Television increase its offering for cable operators. Already a major player in the international cable market, TANDBERG Television offers cable operators best-in-class compression, super headend systems, digital turnaround and transmission solutions to minimize operating costs and maximize their range of new services such as Pay TV, interactivity, telephony, e-commerce and Internet access.

New cable solutions to be launched at NAB include the:

  • - TANDBERG Television Device Controller (TDC), a cost-effective management application for cable headend systems, providing easy configuration and supervision of devices as well as advanced functionality modules.
  • - TT6020 MediaLinkeX, a powerful and compact MPEG-2 media boundary-crossing product that supports all major interface standards and performs advanced transport stream processing. The product is especially well suited in cable networks as a telecom adapter and QAM modulator. A new interface for the highly successful TT6000 MediaLink family of products is the POS (Packet Over Sonet) network adapter extending distribution options to include MPEG-2 video over IP core networks
  • - TT1210 Single Service Descrambler, a single service transport stream descrambler that supports a range of CA systems. Its major application is in digital turnaround systems, providing descrambling without the need to decode and re-encode the signal. New ATSC solutions for Digital Terrestrial (DTT)

Serving both DVB-T and ATSC terrestrial broadcast network operators, TANDBERG Television is the recognized leader in this market with proven interoperability and reliability in real networks. The company has gained over 90% of the UK DTT transmission market, serving all UK DTT broadcasters including the BBC and OnDigital, and also has a strong presence in continental Europe and Asia. In the US ATSC market TANDBERG has enjoyed similar success, ranking in the top two ATSC solutions providers, and supporting customers such as Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tribune Broadcasting and Fox Television Stations.

TANDBERG Television will show a range of new solutions for ATSC broadcasting, including the TT4000 Transport Stream Monitor Series. This range of transport stream monitors now handles both DVB and ATSC standards, including ETR290 error detection. The ATSC version, just launched to the market, supports the PSI/PSIP table decoding. A SMPTE310 input option is available for the TT4030 StreamTracker(TM) multi-stream version of the monitor.

High quality MPEG-2 4:2:2 solutions for fixed contribution and distribution For exchanging materials over satellite, telecommunications and cable networks, TANDBERG Television has achieved a number of firsts including being the first company to deliver solutions based on high-quality MPEG 4:2:2 compression.

At NAB, TANDBERG Television will launch new 4:2:2 solutions including the Alteia Plus and the TT1250 professional IRDs. The TT1250 is an advanced 1RU 4:2:2 IRD for broadcast quality contribution applications. A range of flexible front-end input interfaces are supported such as QPSK, ATM and DVB/ASI. The TT1250 is designed to support frame synchronization and decode to SDI with audio embedding. Analog monitoring is available as a standard with broadcast-quality video (PAL/NTSC/SECAM) and various audio options, including Dolby AC-3 passthrough.

About TANDBERG

Television ASA TANDBERG Television ASA, a Norwegian technology company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, has operations worldwide and employs 850 people in Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. The company provides open solutions for digital broadcasting, specializing in products and systems for the management and transmission of digital TV signals. TANDBERG Television is a leader in digital video compression, multiplexing, transmission and reception and has proven systems integration and global support capabilities. The company is committed to open solutions and plays a major part in developing open systems and international standards such as MPEG-2, DVB, ATSC, SMPTE and DTTV.

TANDBERG Television's customers include major broadcasters and network operators in the digital cable, satellite and terrestrial TV markets as well as leading players in the mobile contribution, distribution, ATM and private network sectors. Current customers include BSkyB, BBC, BT, Cable & Wireless, Canal +, China Satellite, Echostar, Eutelsat, Fox, France Telecom, Media Kabel, Media Set, NTL, NTU, Reuters, SES (Astra), SkyLA, StarTV, Telenor Satellite Services, Telewizja Polska S.A, Telia, TeleDanmark Cable and Tribune Broadcasting.

TANDBERG Television ASA, Philip Pederesens v. 20, P.O.Box 322, N-1326 Lysaker, Norway Tel:+47 6711 6200 Fax: +47 6711 6201 Web Site: www.tandbergtv.com