Sunnyvale, Calif. — April 16, 2009 — Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT) today unveiled the latest enhancements to its Rhozet™ Carbon Coder™ universal media transcoding solution. New capabilities include a dramatic performance increase in H.264 transcoding, improved output quality, improved support for Avid®-based workflows and support for Microsoft® Smooth Streaming. At the 2009 NAB Show, booth #SL9728, Rhozet will demonstrate these enhancements and also preview an automated quality control solution which fits into the Carbon Server workflow and minimizes the manual review of input and output files.
The new Carbon Coder release boosts H.264 transcoding speed by up to 50 percent and supports H.264 video in a variety of containers, including MP4, MPEG-2 transport stream, and F4V (Adobe® Flash®). Additionally, higher quality output can now be achieved with the introduction of two new types of content pre-processing: video deblocking and motion-compensated temporal filtering. These two new video filters can significantly improve the quality of transcoded video by removing noise artifacts that have been introduced into the source video during previous compression. This allows for either improved quality at a given bit-rate or a reduction in bit-rate for a given quality.
"This new release increases performance, enhances quality and improves workflow," said David Trescot, vice president of the Rhozet Business Unit at Harmonic Inc. "We are pleased to be delivering on our promise of continued leadership in the transcoding market."
The new release of Carbon Coder also improves integration with existing Avid-based workflows. This improved support includes the ability to export video into the MXF-wrapped DNxHD format used in many Avid editing environments. New enhancements to Carbon Coder also include support for Microsoft's new Smooth Streaming format, which enables adaptive streaming of media to Silverlight clients over HTTP.
At the 2009 NAB Show, Rhozet will also preview new quality control software for Carbon Server that promises to minimize the amount of manual review required to guarantee quality output. This quality control application is integrated into the transcoding process, allowing users to automatically check a wide variety of quality criteria compared to the original source.
Rhozet Carbon Coder facilitates the transfer of media between a variety of platforms, including acquisition, editing, playout, archive, the Internet and mobile devices. Carbon Coder can run as a standalone application or as part of a multinode, fully automated rendering farm. Carbon Coder provides high-performance, scalable and cost-effective transcoding for a broad range of business environments, from specialized studios to enterprise-scale installations.
The new Carbon Coder enhancements, as well as the new quality control application, will debut at the 2009 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 20-23, in the Rhozet booth, #SL9728, and at the main Harmonic booth, #SU7209. The new version of Carbon Coder will be available in May 2009. The new quality control application is expected to ship in the second half of 2009. For more information on Carbon Coder visit www.rhozet.com.
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About Harmonic Inc.
Harmonic Inc. is a leading provider of versatile and high performance video solutions that enable service providers to efficiently deliver the next generation of broadcast and on-demand services including high definition, video-on-demand, network personal video recording and time-shifted TV. Cable, satellite, broadcast and telecom service providers can increase revenues and lower operational expenditures by using Harmonic's digital video, broadband optical access and software solutions to offer consumers the compelling and personalized viewing experience that is driving the business models of the future.
Rhozet, a business unit of Harmonic Inc., is dedicated to providing accelerated high-quality media transcoding solutions. The Rhozet solutions are offered in both off-the-shelf and customized software configurations for the production and content delivery markets. For more information about Rhozet technology please visit www.rhozet.com.
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with R&D, sales and system integration centers worldwide. The Company's customers, including many of the world's largest communications providers, deliver services in virtually every country. Visit www.harmonicinc.com for more information.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27(A) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21(E) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements related to: previewing new quality control software for Carbon Server, Carbon Coder enhancements which will debut at NAB 2009, availability of a new version of Carbon Coder in May 2009, and shipment of the new quality control application in the second half of 2009.
Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters and the benefits expected from the Carbon Coder universal media transcoding solution may not materialize, and actual results could differ materially from those projected. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Harmonic's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its recent Reports filed on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Harmonic does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements.
EDITOR'S NOTE – Product and company names used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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