SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.—Envivio, a provider of software-based video processing and delivery solutions, is supplying its compression technology to French broadcaster TDF to transmit programming in Ultra HD TV for NRJ HITS, a French music channel, distributed over the national digital terrestrial television (DTT) service.
This DTT 4K video transmission (3840 x 2160 resolution) is leveraging HEVC (H.265) compression from Envivio and the European DVB T-2 standard.
French fans of artists like Pharrell Williams can now watch music videos in Ultra HD with four times the resolution of current HD TV. Following TDF's successful live 4K broadcast of the French Open tennis tournament in France (when it also worked with Envivio technology), the country's national regulator CSA has authorized TDF to broadcast Ultra HD TV over the DTT network using the DVB-T2 standard from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The 4K video is encoded at 50 frames per second using Envivio Muse Ultra HD encoding software on Envivio G5 appliances.
"Envivio successfully debuted live 4K HEVC video transmissions over a DTT network for us at the French Open tournament, and our confidence in Envivio continues to grow with this transmission of Ultra HD content from NRJ HITS," said Alain Komly, deputy director at TDF.
"Wrapping up our successful broadcast of the World Cup, this transmission is yet another example of the technical power of our video processing software for over-the-air broadcast in 4K Ultra HD," said Jean-Pierre Henot, Envivio's Chief Technology Officer.
Envivio's Muse video processing software can encode up to 4K video resolution in up to 60 frames per second, offers a larger color range with the new BT 2020 standard and can be encoded in eight or 10 bits. The software supports both live and on-demand 4K compression in HEVC format. The HEVC standard reduces bandwidth consumption compared to MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) by 30 to 50 percent, improving the video experience and reducing cost of operations for both Ultra HD big-screen services and existing mobile or over-the-top TV services.
