Harmonic Inc. announced that Latens SystemsT-Online France, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, has deployed Harmonic’s DiviCom Electra 5000 multi-service encoders to power its new Club Internet ADSL-based digital television service. A comprehensive video, voice and data triple play offering that is now available throughout France, Club Internet TV is the first video service to be commercially launched in Europe using the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform. Harmonic's full range of market-leading MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) headend solutions are selected by top tier telco operators around the world—including for the majority of European IPTV deployments to date—to deliver high quality, low bit-rate video services using the existing DSL-based infrastructure.

Television is undergoing a revolutionary shift as communications and multimedia services converge toward an integrated, more personalized and on-demand experience. Operators can take full advantage of the flexibility made possible with Harmonic's IP-based video headend infrastructure to support a variety of new and dynamic services. T-Online France's Club Internet TV service is setting a new standard by offering consumers more than 150 SD broadcast television channels, a full complement of video-on-demand (VOD) and subscription VOD programs, an intuitive and feature-rich interactive program guide with picture-in-picture, personal video recorder (PVR), and fast channel change capability. The versatility and advanced features of the IP-based DiviCom encoders are especially critical for telco operators like T-Online France as they launch new video services and further extend the infrastructure to support HD, VOD and other bandwidth-intensive services.

"With the Club Internet digital TV service, our goal was to create a novel user experience that truly takes television to a new level," said Claude Glacet, Chief Information Officer of T-Online France. "The combination of the Microsoft TV solution and the Harmonic DiviCom product portfolio enables us to put in place a scalable infrastructure that supports a variety of broadcast and on-demand services today and can expand as we grow, in addition to providing a highly interactive program guide and user experience. The DiviCom encoders provide superior video quality and reliability, and were seamlessly integrated in the Microsoft TV environment, facilitating the deployment and simplifying ongoing management of our video service."

"As the world transitions more and more rapidly to an on-demand and personalized TV experience, the ability to flexibly deliver high quality IP-based video services is critically important," said Patrick Harshman, President and CEO of Harmonic Inc. "Harmonic works closely with Microsoft TV and a variety of industry partners to create leading-edge IPTV solutions that reduce time-to-market, risk and operational complexity for T-Online France and other operators, while advancing and enhancing the viewing experience for their subscribers. The DiviCom encoders, which powered the world's first service to transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 AVC via a firmware upgrade and the first all MPEG-4 AVC service, are at the heart of most of the leading IP-based video services in operation around the world."

The Electra 5000 multi-service encoder offers unparalleled flexibility for existing and emerging applications such as picture-in-picture and video to the PC by encoding a single channel in multiple formats, multiple channels in a single format, or multiple channels in different formats. With the Electra 5000, T-Online France can seamlessly support full resolution MPEG-2 SD television services and low resolution picture-in-picture in MPEG-4 format, further reducing cost and complexity of the video service. The versatility of the Harmonic encoders also enables T-Online to easily transition to an all MPEG-4 service in the future.