CANALSAT boosts ADSL programme line-up and reach with Harmonic encoders

CANALSAT, the leading digital Pay TV operator in France with more than 10.5 million subscriptions, has boosted its ADSL video service with the help of MPEG-4 AVC based encoders from Harmonic Inc. The company will use the DiviCom Electra 7000 high-definition and Electra 5400 standard-definition encoders to expand HD and SD programming, and also extend the reach of services over ADSL.

CANALSAT is part of the CANAL+ Group and a fully-owned subsidiary of Vivendi. It distributes more than 300 television channels to viewers in France via multiple platforms including digital terrestrial television, direct-to-home satellite, ADSL and mobile. The company is a large aggregated DSL service provider, delivering content to consumers through several major telecoms networks.

"Harmonic continues to demonstrate its leadership in providing reliable and high performance compression solutions for both standard and high-definition programming," declares Christophe Hennequin, Technical Director of CANALSAT. "The ability to deliver a technically superior H.264 [MPEG-4 AVC] solution is critical as we introduce new revenue generating services such as HD to our subscribers.

“Harmonic's new IP-based Electra H.264 encoders meet our needs for provisioning the highest quality video and give CANALSAT the compression efficiency improvements that allow us to support more services to the home."

Thierry Fautier, Director of Telco Solutions for Harmonic Inc, adds: “Maximising bandwidth utilisation has become a top priority for telco video service providers worldwide as demand for HD, VOD and higher-speed Internet access continues to grow. The deployment of Harmonic's highly flexible Electra 7000 HD and 5400 SD H.264 encoders gives CANALSAT the ability to significantly decrease bit rates in comparison with MPEG-2, while enhancing the viewing experience. The multi-channel and multi-service capabilities of the latest generation Electra H.264 encoders greatly simplify operations, reduce costs and help enable a profitable video-over-DSL business model."