TANDBERG Television will integrate its encoding technologies with Microsoft TV's IPTV Edition software platform.
The companies also agreed to enhance TANDBERG's EN5900 range of advanced video encoders that integrate Microsoft's IPTV platform by incorporating picture-in- picture (PIP) generation functionality into the encoder itself.
Enabling PIP functionality without requiring additional hardware-based tuners in the set-top box is one of the unique features of Microsoft TV IPTV Edition. By incorporating PIP capabilities into the encoding solution, TANDBERG Television and Microsoft TV further maximize system efficiencies, because PIP encoding is handled at the encoder. This eliminates processing demands on the acquisition server, which otherwise would need to decode and re-encode the PIP stream, thus reducing the overall cost of the solution and improving the user experience.
The PIP stream will be generated from the same video source and will consist of a lower-resolution version encoded at a much lower bit-rate than the main stream. Resolution reduction is achieved within the encoder and no additional external components are needed.
http://www.tandbergtv.com/http://www.microsoft.com/tv
- Earlier this month, TANDBERG Television announced that it has commenced the installation of an end-to-end IPTV delivery system for the commercial roll-out of the Swisscom/Bluewin triple play service. Swisscom has chosen the TANDBERG Television professional hardware encoding solution for Windows Media Video 9 (Microsoft's implementation of VC-1, the proposed SMPTE standard) following a competitive tender process.
