OLD BRIDGE, N.J. —Blonder Tongue Laboratories announced that the company’s HDE-8C-QAM w/Opt 2 encoder is now approved for use in high-definition deployments over coax infrastructure by a major U.S. satellite digital television provider.

Using the HDE-8C-QAM w/Opt 2 encoder, operators can accept programs from up to eight component or composite inputs from satellite receivers. After accepting video content, the encoder digitizes, MPEG-2 encodes, multiplexes, and modulates the eight input programs plus a spare into four adjacent watermarked QAM channels. The high-performance encoder also features a Web-based user interface plus a front-panel test point.

Additionally, the encoder includes closed captioning, user-defined PSIP configurations, and is compatible with ITU Annex A and B digital QAM formats. An included emergency alert system interface allows the encoder to comply with EAS requirements.