TANDBERG Television's Mediaplex-20 headends used for Japan-wide MPEG-4 IPTV

June 6th, 2006 – On Demand TV — the 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 Part 10 (H.264/AVC) delivery for its nationwide IPTV roll-out in Japan.

On Demand TV is planning to deploy TANDBERG Television MPEG-4 Part 10 transcoding in its Mediaplex-based headends in Tokyo (East) and Osaka (West). Each headend will process transcoded MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 Part 10 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 Part 10 and to provide additional headend redundancy. The Mediaplex product range is now integrated into the TANDBERG Television portfolio following its acquisition of SkyStream.

On Demand TV will use the MPEG-4 Part 10 transcoding technology to reduce the bit rate of video delivery over millions of its DSL lines and to offer a new, extensive library of VOD movies to NTT’s subscribers in both standard-definition and MPEG-4 Part 10 HD 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 fibre 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,” explains 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 fibre networks using MPEG-2 compression.

According to TANDBERG Television, "Our MPEG-4 AVC transcoders let On Demand TV expand its services and deliver MPEG-4 video and content over NTT’s widespread DSL networks, through bandwidth efficiency gains of approximately 50 per cent 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."