Harmonic announces that Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative of Walterboro, S.C., has selected the Harmonic ProStream 1000 with ACE high-density, real-time transcoder to power HD and SD video for its 290-channel IPTV service, based on the Microsoft Mediaroom platform.

The ProStream 1000 with ACE "any-to-any, any-to-many" real-time transcoding solution provides PRTC with Microsoft picture-in-picture capability and support for HD and SD, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video and audio transcoding of up to 20 HD or 60 SD channels in a compact and power-efficient one rack unit chassis. The platform's industry-leading density enables PRTC to meet the growing demand for digital TV services.

A Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem partner, Harmonic powers the video headends for a majority of Microsoft's IPTV customers. Harmonic currently delivers over 13,000 IPTV channels around the world and counts more than 100 telco operators as its customers. The ProStream 1000 with ACE will be on display at Harmonic's booth #533 during TelcoTV 2011 in New Orleans, Oct. 25-27.