Harmonic announced at the 2010 NAB Show that its Electra 8000Z multi-channel HD/SD universal encoder and ProStream 4000 real-time multi-screen transcoder have completed compliance testing for the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform.
Microsoft administered the test of both systems as part of the Microsoft Mediaroom Interoperability and Qualification Lab (IQ Lab) program, which is intended to enable the ongoing interoperability and compliance of headend equipment used in deployments of Microsoft Mediaroom.
Microsoft Mediaroom enables connected TV features and experiences, such as simultaneous recording of multiple HD and SD TV channels, personal media sharing, whole-home and remote DVR and multiple picture-in-picture (PIP) scenarios.
Service providers that want to deploy Mediaroom-based IPTV services using an existing headend infrastructure can rely on the real-time transcoding capabilities of the ProStream 4000 platform to generate up to 46 PIPs in 1RU from MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) IP sources.
Operators also can benefit from a more integrated and efficient network with the Electra 8000 multichannel encoder, which supports HD/SD video delivery with simultaneous secondary output for PIP and converged multiscreen applications.
