TANDBERG Television announced today that On Demand TV - a joint venture of NTT West (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corp.) and Itochu - will expand its deployment of TANDBERG Television's Mediaplex-20-based video headends to support MPEG-4 AVC technology for its nationwide IPTV rollout in Japan.

On Demand TV is planning to deploy TANDBERG Television MPEG-4 AVC transcoding in its Mediaplex-based headends in Tokyo (East) and Osaka (West). Each headend will process transcoded MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 AVC content and deliver it to NTT's Broadband (FTTH and ADSL) customers. On Demand TV also is adding two new Mediaplex headends to its existing installation of Mediaplexes to transcode the MPEG-2 content to MPEG-4 AVC and to provide additional headend redundancy.

On Demand TV will use the MPEG-4 AVC transcoding technology to reduce the bit rate of video delivery over millions of its DSL lines and to offer a new, extensive library of video-on-demand (VOD) movies to NTT's subscribers in both standard definition and MPEG-4 AVC High Definition VOD.

"After one year, our MPEG-2 IPTV service has been completely dependable and is operating well with the Mediaplex. We're getting ready to expand our IPTV offering beyond our fiber networks and make it available to the rest of our subscribers over our ADSL networks, and TANDBERG Television's MPEG-4 advanced compression and transcoding technology enables us to deliver high-quality content regardless of bandwidth constraints or content format", said Yasuyuki Taniguchi, chief manager of engineering for On Demand TV. "The Mediaplex video headend's efficient migration path to MPEG-4 will make it easy for us to upgrade our headends with a minimal amount of resources expended."

NTT West and NTT East provide telephone and broadband services to more than 60 million subscribers across Japan, which has one of the world's highest broadband penetration rates. On Demand TV currently delivers 27 broadcast channels over the NTT West and NTT East IPv6-based fiber networks using MPEG-2 compression. TANDBERG Television's MPEG-4 AVC transcoders let On Demand TV expand its services and deliver MPEG-4 AVC video and content over NTT's widespread DSL networks, through bandwidth efficiency gains of approximately 50% from the MPEG-4 AVC technology. Additionally, by adding transcoders to its SkyStream Mediaplex, On Demand TV can convert its MPEG-2 content into high-quality MPEG-4 AVC while preserving picture quality, teletext, subtitling and audio through one all-digital step - allowing it to leverage its current base of MPEG-2 content for distribution over MPEG-4 AVC. With the addition of MPEG-4 AVC transcoding, NTT will become the world's first carrier to deploy an MPEG-4 AVC IPv6-based television service.

"Now that carriers of all sizes - from the smallest rural telcos to the world's largest providers, like NTT - are successfully delivering IPTV, service providers no longer see video as an option, but as an essential part of their service offerings," said Jim Olson, executive vice president, TANDBERG Television. "The planned expansion of NTT's IPTV service to MPEG-4 AVC is indicative of the growing success and pervasiveness of IPTV worldwide. Our continued work with NTT as their video service evolves is truly a testament to our equipment's ability to grow with providers as their services expand and advance."