SOUTHAMPTON, England, and REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 29, 2002 — TANDBERG Television and Microsoft Corp. today announced they will collaborate to offer professional broadcast solutions supporting Windows Media (TM) 9 Series for the telecom and professional broadcast industries. TANDBERG Television is developing a dedicated, real-time hardware-based encoding platform for Windows Media, based on Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series. TANDBERG Television and Microsoft also are collaborating at a number of levels, including engineering, sales and marketing. The results of this cooperation will be demonstrated for the first time at IBC2002 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Sept. 13-17.
“There is a huge need within the broadcast and broadband industries for delivery platforms that offer the highest-quality audio and video at the lowest data rate to save bandwidth costs and enable greater subscriber reach,”
said Gwyn Pugh, CEO of TANDBERG Television.
“Windows Media Video 9 Series is a technology breakthrough that, when integrated with our real-time implementation, makes the delivery of broadcast-quality video at bit rates as low as 1 Mbits per second a reality.”
With the transition from analog to digital accelerating, the broadcast and broadband worlds are increasingly driven by a common goal: to deliver the best quality at the lowest cost. This new cooperation between TANDBERG Television and Microsoft will give operators the flexibility to use Windows Media 9 Series either as the basis for an end-to-end IP-based broadcast and video on demand (VOD) network, or enhancing existing DVB- and MPEG-based broadcast networks with higher quality at lower data rates, compared with current standards-based compression technologies. The technology also provides a low-latency encoding solution required by the professional broadcast industry.
“TANDBERG Television’s encoding expertise and its strong track record as an innovator and standards setter is legendary in digital broadcasting,”
said Will Poole, vice president of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft.
“Our collaboration will help realize the value of broadcast and broadband convergence and enable professional broadcasters and operators to benefit from the cost-efficiencies and high-quality of state-of-the-art video compression delivered over standards-based transport.”
Today’s standards-based digital broadcast infrastructures such as DVB will be able to seamlessly take advantage of the high-quality compression capabilities of Windows Media and TANDBERG Television’s innovation. Windows Media 9 Series can be delivered via an MPEG-2 transport or IP-based transport. The new encoding solution will provide real-time compressed audio and video at full broadcast-quality resolutions for direct to home (cable, satellite, terrestrial), broadband (xDSL/fiber to the home (FTTH)), contribution (backhaul) and business TV (private network) operators.
TANDBERG Television’s lab tests of Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series technology over the past six months have put the codecs through their paces, measuring their performance with real-world content. The evaluation has shown that at low to medium bit rates for most types of content, the quality is significantly higher than that of MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, opening the door for the growth of broadcast-quality video delivery over networks such as ADSL. Windows Media 9 Series can successfully scale up to higher bit rates (e.g., 5-12 Mbits per second) for applications that need contribution- and distribution-level performance.
At IBC2002, TANDBERG Television and Microsoft will showcase a technology demonstration of Windows Media 9 Series content being delivered live over an end-to-end DVB broadcast system at their respective stands (TANDBERG Television, Stand No. 1.421, and Microsoft, Stand No. 4.161). A combination of file transfer and live streaming of real-time broadcast-quality video over both satellite and terrestrial networks will show how the broadcast industry can integrate open standards with new technology innovations.
Launching in Hollywood and available for public beta release on Sept. 4, Windows Media 9 Series is an end-to-end platform that delivers a dramatically improved playback experience, and unmatched audio and video quality, to a broad spectrum of customers. Windows Media Audio 9 Series provides compression improvements of 20 percent over previous versions, and Windows Media Video 9 Series offers up to 50 percent improvement for high-bit-rate content compared with Windows Media Video 8. Windows Media Video 9 Series also can now offer decoding at HD resolutions.
About Windows Media
Windows Media is the leading digital media platform, providing unmatched audio and video quality to consumers, content providers, solution providers, software developers and corporations. Windows Media offers the industry’s only integrated digital rights management solution and the most scalable and reliable streaming technology tested by independent labs. Windows Media Technologies includes Windows Media Player for consumers, Windows Media Services for servers, Windows Media Tools for content creation and the Windows Media Software Development Kit for software developers. Windows Media Player, available in 26 languages, is the fastest-growing and now leading media player. More information about Windows Media can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ .
About TANDBERG Television
TANDBERG Television (Oslo, Norway, Stock Exchange
“TAT”
) is a market leader in the provision of open solutions for the digital broadcasting of audio, data and video across various networks including cable, satellite, terrestrial, IP and telecom. The company has proven systems integration and global support capabilities as well as sales and 24-hour support and monitoring operations in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States. TANDBERG Television’s customers include major broadcasters, network operators and convergence players around the world including Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC), BBC, BSkyB, FOX Sports, NBC, NTL, Telenor and StarTV. More information can be found at http://www.tandbergtv.com/ .
About Windows Media
Windows Media is the leading digital media platform, providing unmatched audio and video quality to consumers, content providers, solution providers, software developers and corporations. Windows Media offers the industry’s only integrated digital rights management solution and the most scalable and reliable streaming technology tested by independent labs. Windows Media Technologies includes Windows Media Player for consumers, Windows Media Services for servers, Windows Media Tools for content creation and the Windows Media Software Development Kit for software developers. Windows Media Player, available in 26 languages, is the fastest-growing and now leading media player. More information about Windows Media can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
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