Arqiva Adds To Tandberg MPEG-2 Platform

Tandberg Television has announced that Arqiva has deployed revolutionary new MPEG-2 video compression to update its UK digital terrestrial (DTT) transmission infrastructure.
Tandberg Television was awarded the contract after extensive technical evaluation and competitive tender. Crucial to the deal is the recently announced Tandberg EN8100, the world's most powerful, high density MPEG-2 broadcast encoder.
The new Tandberg television compression system has enabled Arqiva to add additional channels per 160QAM multiplex and to achieve an improvement in picture quality. The two additional channels bring incremental revenue to Arqiva, provide more choice to the consumers of the highly successful UK Freeview DTT service and demonstrate the technology gains of the Tandberg EN8100 in tightly constrained environments.
Michael Finchen, Director of Digital Platforms for Arqiva, said: "We are delighted with the performance of the new Tandberg MPEG-2 platform, it has delivered results beyond our expectations.
"Tandberg Television's commitment to MPEG-2, the close relationship we have with their engineering and commercial teams and the unprecedented performance of the EN8100 were critical factors in our selection of the company, and key contributors to the success of this project."
The Tandberg MPEG-2 solution for Arqiva includes compression, multiplexing and commissioning. A number of test platforms, and two live platforms were all delivered within agreed timescales.
Roger Bolton, EVP of compression systems at Tandberg Television, said: "We have a strategic relationship with Arqiva and are delighted that our technology is helping them to launch new services and achieve better quality. There is a great deal of interest in our new MPEG-2 platform from broadcasters and operators around the world and I am proud that we continue to lead the compression market with business model enabling solutions."
Simon Frost, Business Development Director at Tandberg Television, said: "Rge EN8100 is ideal for digital terrestrial operators such as Arqiva because of the performance it delivers and its ability to support legacy MPEG-2 set-top boxes.
"We are fully committed to the DTT market and to MPEG-2. We recognise the importance of gaining efficiency in existing MPEG-2 multiplexes, especially given the big push from operators wanting to deploy HD using DVB-T2."
(KMcA/BMcC)