In yet another announcement tied to Deutsche Telekom, TANDBERG Television's IPTV video head-end and MPEG-4 AVC encoders have been selected by Deutsche Telekom for the Croatian T-Com network. TANDBERG is Working closely with Siemens Networks to provide the technology for the MAXtv IPTV service being launched by Croatian T-Com. The service is using TANDBERG EN5930 SD (standard definition) encoders, TT1222 professional receivers and TT7140 IP streamers to provide Croatian viewers with over 80 real-time channels and a large number of video on-demand movies.

"Getting the IP network infrastructure right is a critical part of our service roll-out. We recognize that we need best-of-breed technologies to enable us to cost-effectively meet our core objectives of providing our customers with the best quality and widest choice of entertainment services. Siemens and TANDBERG Television have given us access to advanced systems that meet our needs today and give us flexibility and scalability for the future," says Vedran Perisic, Director for Content Development and Management at Croatian T-Com.

A key technology enabler in the Croatian T-Com IP network is the use of TANDBERG MPEG-4 AVC encoders which enable the bandwidth efficient delivery of high quality video. By deploying MPEG-4 AVC from the outset, Croatian T-Com can benefit from the industry's leading 'picture quality versus performance' through bandwidth improvements of up to 50% over traditional MPEG-2. TANDBERG Television’s upgradeable SD/HD MPEG-4 AVC solution will provide Croatian T-COM with a technology lead now and also enable the smooth introduction of HD (High Definition) TV over DSL at a later date.

"Operators such as Deutsche Telekom subsidiary Croatian T-Com recognize that video is not an option, but as an essential part of their service offerings," said Eric Baron President of TANDBERG Television EMEA. "The use of MPEG-4 AVC for the roll-out of this service is indicative of the standard’s capabilities and readiness for primetime delivery. Our pioneering development work in advanced compression standards has made us the vendor of choice for many operators around the world and we are excited to be enabling Croatian T-Com to introduce these ground-breaking television services in Croatia."

The contract follows the recent announcement that the annual IPTV leadership report, published in September by the Multimedia Research Group (MRG), ranked TANDBERG Television as a leading IP video head-end supplier globally, being number one in Europe, as well as in Asia and rest of world. Worldwide TANDBERG Television has been involved in more than 160 xDSL and FTTH deployments and there are over 2 million subscribers currently viewing IPTV thanks to the company’s technology. TANDBERG Television offers a fully integrated IPTV head-end product line, which provides the industry’s widest selection of encoding and video processing technologies for streaming, transrating, transcoding, ultracompression and high density encoding. TANDBERG Television’s solutions can be applied to IPTV applications based on ADSL, VDSL, FTTH or Ethernet delivery to the subscriber.