IBC2009: Tandberg Driving Migration to 'All-HD'

Tandberg plans to demo in the next several days why it believes the migration towards an "all-HD television universe" is now both technically feasible and realistic. The company — based in Southampton, England, and part of the Ericsson Group — said on the eve of IBC2009 it plans to launch several "firsts" designed to enable more HD content at sustained or increase quality levels.

One of its primary goals in the next year, it says, is to help the broadcast industry "make HD the new SD" without compromising the "wow factor" (i.e., over-compression).

IBC exhibit-goers visiting the joint Ericsson-Tandberg Television area (Stand 1:D61) will be able to see a demo of what Tandberg says is "the world's first MPEG-4 AVC HD 4:2:2 system solution for the Contribution & Distribution market." Included in the new system is an MPEG-4 AVC HD 4:2:2 encoder and receiver that support up to 1080p/50-60 fps encoding and 10-bit precision.

According to Tandberg and Ericsson, the new system opens the technical door to large-scale migration from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 AVC for the 4:2:2 HD video widely used within the professional market — as well as deliver what the firms say will be higher quality video for the same costs and with less bandwidth.