Harmonic Helps Broadcasters Expand Service Offerings

By Adam Goldberg

Harmonic (Booth SU7209) enables broadcasters to enhance and expand service offerings, including converged video services with a full suite of solutions from content preparation to delivery.

“As consumption models change, our customers need to rapidly launch new services,” says Tom Lattie, director, Broadcast and New Media Solutions. Harmonic’s products allow them to address new markets and new marketplaces, while leveraging their existing infrastructure investments

The Electra 8000 encoder released earlier this month simultaneously encodes into two different formats and resolutions, allowing service providers to feed traditional delivery systems and online delivery systems simultaneously with appropriate content formats. It is the world’s first encoding and transcoding platform to support MPEG-4 AVC and MPEG-2 in standard-definition and high-definition formats, up to 1080p/60. It delivers superior video quality in a dense and power-efficient form factor: four channels per rack unit, using 40% less power than the industry average for HD MPEG-4 AVC encoding.

The Electra has integrated statistical multiplexing built in with Harmonic’s DiviTrackMX. Also provided are support for DiviTrackIP in LAN or distributed WAN environments; IP or ASI outputs, with multiple audio-format options; and native support for Digital Program Insertion splicing. To support transcoding, the unit has integrated decoding with IP, 8-VSB, or ASI inputs.