Envivio Inc., the leading technology provider of MPEG-4 (including AVC / H.264) systems which support broadcast services from mobile to HD, announced that its 4Caster Mobile Series encoders have been selected by CANAL+ Group for its DVB-H trial of video services to handheld devices. CANAL+ Group is the French leader in Pay-TV and digital TV Broadcast and in the production and distribution of films. The optimized Envivio encoders compress content to very low bit rates that are ideal for mobile operators wanting to enrich their services beyond voice to offer digital television and on-demand video, and for broadcasters such as CANAL+ wanting to repurpose content to address these new markets.

"We are continually offering new and enhanced services to our subscribers. We selected the Envivio encoders because of their unrivaled picture quality and ability to support a wide range of handheld devices," said Jean-Christophe Dekeyser-Donze, New Technologies Director at CANAL+ Group. "Since the Envivio encoders are fully compliant with key mobile standards, they have seamlessly integrated into our network and we plan to work together to enhance image quality."

The 4Caster Mobile Series of real time MPEG-4 encoders optimally distributes audio and video to mobile phone and mobile television subscribers. The encoding systems are compliant with international mobile delivery standards including 3GPP, DVB-H and ISDB-T.