Harmonic announces that Manthan Broadband Services has implemented a complete video headend solution from Harmonic for its new digital cable TV service in Kolkata. The systems deployed include DiviCom Ion multi-channel MPEG-2 encoders, the Broadcast Network Gateway edgeQAM for QAM modulation and scrambling, and NMX Digital Service Manager for end-to-end monitoring and control of the video service.

The complete turnkey solution was sold by Simac Broadcast. System integration was key in the successful launch of the complete platform, and the local Simac Broadcast team worked closely together with the customer and Harmonic from the design phase to the on-air date. In addition to system integration, all supporting services are handled by Simac Broadcast through their support offices in India.

“Harmonic and Simac Broadcast offered us the most scalable solution and best quality compression for our new digital TV service,” said Gurmeet Singh, Director of Manthan Broadband. “With the bandwidth-efficient Harmonic encoders, we are able to deliver 15 services in a single QAM, and achieve this goal without impacting the video quality. The reliability, ease of management and performance of the Harmonic headend enable us to deliver a top notch digital pay TV service for our subscribers, and the integration with our conditional access system for scrambling at the edge efficiently protects the content as it is delivered to the home.”

“A high quality IP-based video architecture is key for operators like Manthan Broadband that want to create a future-ready network that can scale to accommodate more subscribers and more advanced services such as high definition and on-demand,” said Raymond Tse, Vice President of Asia Pacific Sales for Harmonic Inc. “Innovative and market-leading cable, satellite, telco and terrestrial video service providers around the world rely on Harmonic’s native IP-based digital video products for their broadcast and on-demand TV services.”

The Ion encoders are part of Harmonic’s DiviCom line of market-leading MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and MPEG-2 compression solutions, providing superior picture quality at lower bit-rates for both standard definition and high definition video programming. Harmonic’s BNG supports QAM modulation, DVB scrambling and multiplexing in a compact one rack-unit form factor. The entire video headend is easily configured and controlled by NMX, a service-centric system for end-to-end management of the video delivery platform.