CES: Tandberg Television demonstrates MPEG-4 AVC with Broadcom

LAS VEGAS—At the Consumer Electronics Show, Tandberg Television rolled out what it claims the world’s first, live demonstration of an end-to-end advanced encoding solution that supports high definition MPEG-4 part 10 (H.264/AVC).

The demonstration was done in conjunction with chip vendor Broadcom. With the Broadcom’s set-top box decoder reference platform and Tandberg’s EN5990 video encoder, broadcast networks will be able to squeeze HD channels into bandwidth that is up to half the 12 Mb/s to 18 Mb/s currently needed using MPEG-2.

For telcos, the demonstration marks a significant milestone. Many larger carriers are depending on the ability to offer up HDTV as a significant element within their video services. However, without new compression, such signals would simply takes up too much bandwidth.

“We initially built it for the North American satellite market but it could easily apply to the telcos,” said Eric Cooney, president and CEO of Tandberg. “Let’s face it, DirecTV is a great catalyst for the industry.”

Indeed, Cooney anticipates carriers being fast followers in deploying MPEG-4.

“Given the business case urgency, as soon as they can get the technology, they’ll make it happen,” he said.