SK Broadband Chooses TANDBERG Television IPTV Headend for Broadcast TV

SK
Broadband, South Korea’s
second-largest broadband provider, is deploying a TANDBERG Television IPTV headend, which includes HD and SD MPEG-4 AVC encoding. Following the recent
granting of regulatory approval for Korean IPTV providers to introduce
broadcast services to complement existing video-on-demand content, the solution
will enable SK Broadband to launch linear broadcast-television services in 2009.
SK Broadband intends to initially introduce 30 standard-definition and 10 HD
channels.

“The
addition of broadcast television, including popular terrestrial channels, is a
significant event for the Korean IPTV market and the whole media industry in
the country,” says Dario Choi, VP and general manager of TANDBERG Television
Asia Pacific. “SK Broadband has demonstrated that it is possible to build a
popular and successful IPTV service using on-demand content, and subscribers can
now look forward to the highest-quality broadcast TV. We are delighted to
provide the headend for this landmark project after a vigorous selection
process.”

Dr. HS Kim
at SK Broadband, says, “Broadcast television is a significant new service for
SK Broadband and will improve the IPTV experience and help us grow our
business. We want to provide a feel-good factor for consumers watching our
services and therefore set very high expectations for picture quality as well
as bandwidth usage. TANDBERG Television has demonstrated its leadership in
MPEG-4 AVC HD and SD compression, and we are pleased to work with them on this
exciting project.”

The IPTV
headend supplied to SK Broadband includes TANDBERG EN8030 MPEG-4 AVC SD
encoders, EN8090 MPEG-4 AVC HD encoders, iPlex for IP multiplexing, and RX1290
SD/HD Integrated Receiver Decoders. The TANDBERG iPlex has won numerous
technology industry awards, and TANDBERG Television recently announced that
it has been awarded a
Technology & Engineering Emmy
Award in recognition of its development and deployment of MPEG-4 AVC systems
for HDTV.