TANDBERG Television's OpenStream Digital Services Platform has been selected by Tianjin TEDA Cable TV to expand its cable TV offering into VOD and network personal video recorder services. Tianjin TEDA Cable already provides digital cable TV services to the people of Tianjin TEDA using a TANDBERG Television head-end and network control solution. Now the operator is rolling out a state-of-the-art VOD system, based on TANDBERG Television’s market leading OpenStream Digital Services Platform with real-time ingest for nPVR. As part of the contract, TANDBERG Television has also provided its Xport on-demand content production software system. The deal extends TANDBERG Television’s presence in China and confirms the company’s market leadership in open systems VOD platforms.

Tianjin TEDA Cable is a state-owned organization responsible for the planning, construction, operation, and management of the cable TV network of Tianjin TEDA. Tianjin TEDA is a hot-bed of hi-tech industry in China, situated in the northeastern part of China adjacent to Beijing (120km) and the Hebei province. Tianjin TEDA aims to be ‘Asia’s biggest, and China’s best modern industrial area in the 21st century’ and is therefore building a world class communications infrastructure which includes advanced television and broadband services.

The deal extends TANDBERG Television’s leadership position in the on-demand market and in China. With more than five systems being deployed in China today and another five in Europe, including UPC Netherlands and Multimedia Polska; TANDBERG Television has rapidly become the international market leader in on-demand back office solutions. This builds on the company’s already strong position in North America, where OpenStream has been the leading open digital services platform for a number of years.

The industry’s leading open standards based solution, OpenStream seamlessly integrates with third party products and offers Tianjin TEDA Cable the flexibility of using servers, applications, billing systems, and other system components from suppliers of its choice. The TANDBERG real-time ingest system is an extension of OpenStream and enables Tianjin TEDA Cable to provide advanced time-shifted television services without having to install expensive hard-drive based STBs or PVRs in its customers’ homes. The real-time ingest and catalog solution includes enhancements to TANDBERG’s Xport Producer encoding and OpenStream platform, which enable Tianjin TEDA Cable to deploy nPVR services simply and quickly and to offer broadcast programs as VOD titles within seconds from the start of broadcast.