Harmonic announces that SKY Italia has deployed Harmonic’s market-leading compression and IP-based statistical multiplexing solutions for its direct broadcast satellite service. Serving 4.5 million subscribers, SKY Italia is Italy’s leading payTV operator and the fifth largest satellite provider worldwide. The new headend architecture encompasses Harmonic’s industry-leading DiviCom Electra 1000 standard definition MPEG-2 encoders, the ProStream stream processing platform with DiviTrackIP distributed statistical multiplexing, and NMX Digital Service Manager.

Harmonic’s high performance compression solutions are deployed by seven of the ten largest satellite providers around the globe, reaching nearly 50 million subscribers. As demand for video, particularly HD, continues to grow, operators such as SKY Italia need to implement more bandwidth-efficient compression technology to reduce bit-rates and improve video quality.

Harmonic’s market-leading compression portfolio also includes the Electra 7000 HD and Electra 5400 SD MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders, and the Ion multi-channel SD MPEG-2 and AVC encoders. These IP-based encoders deliver up to four channels in one rack unit, offering operators a dense, high performance solution that significantly reduces energy consumption.

Harmonic has led the way in pioneering the all-IP architecture, and introduced the world’s first IP-based statistical multiplexing solution, DiviTrackIP, in 2005. This innovative solution gives operators more flexibility in their video networks, while lowering capital and operational expenses, by eliminating the need for encoders to be physically co-located.