SK Broadband Deploys TANDBERG Television IPTV Head End in Korea

TANDBERG Television announced that SK Broadband, South Korea’s second largest broadband provider, is deploying a TANDBERG Television IPTV headend, which includes HD and SD MPEG-4 AVC encoding. This solution will enable SK Broadband to launch linear broadcast television services in 2009, following the recent granting of regulatory approval for Korean IPTV providers to introduce broadcast services to complement existing video on demand content. SK Broadband (formerly Hanaro Telecom, now part of SK), intends to introduce 30 standard-definition and 10 HD channels initially.

"The addition of broadcast television, including popular terrestrial channels, is a significant event for the Korean IPTV market and the whole media industry in the country," said Dario Choi, VP and general manager of TANDBERG Television Asia Pacific. "SK Broadband has demonstrated that it is possible to build a popular and successful IPTV service using on-demand content and subscribers can now look forward to the highest quality broadcast TV. We are delighted to provide the headend for this landmark project after a vigorous selection process."

Dr HS Kim at SK Broadband, says: "Broadcast television is a significant new service for SK Broadband and will improve the IPTV experience and help us grow our business. We want to provide a feel-good factor for consumers watching our services and therefore set very high expectations for picture quality as well as bandwidth usage. TANDBERG Television has demonstrated its leadership in MPEG-4 AVC HD and SD compression and we are pleased to work with them on this exciting project."

The IPTV headend supplied to SK Broadband includes market leading TANDBERG EN8030 MPEG-4 AVC SD encoders, EN8090 MPEG-4 AVC HD encoders, iPlex™ for IP multiplexing and RX1290 SD/HD Integrated Receiver Decoders. The TANDBERG iPlex has won numerous technology industry awards and TANDBERG Television has recently announced that it has been awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of its pioneering development and deployment of MPEG-4 AVC systems for HDTV.

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