Harmonic’s MPEG-4 AVC Digital Video Splicer Completes Microsoft Mediaroom Conformance Testing

ProStream™ 2000 Delivers High Quality, Real-Time Splicing of HD and SD MPEG-4 AVC Video Streams; Enables Integrated Digital Ad Insertion –

Sunnyvale, Calif. and Redmond, Wash. - Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that its ProStream™ 2000 digital video splicer has successfully completed conformance testing for real-time splicing of national MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video streams of the Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) platform. A key component of Harmonic’s award-winning IP-based advertisement insertion solution, fully compliant with the SCTE 35 and SCTE 30 standards, the software-based ProStream 2000 platform offers outstanding levels of scalability and can be easily integrated into an IPTV operator’s network.

The test for the ProStream 2000 platform was administered by Microsoft Corp. 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. A long-standing Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem partner, Harmonic powers the video headends for a majority of Microsoft Mediaroom’s customers worldwide.

“Microsoft Mediaroom customers now have another way to build connected TV services and applications that will ultimately help drive new revenue streams and provide consumers with personalized TV experiences,” said Christine Heckart, general manager of marketing of the Connected Television Division at Microsoft. “Our ongoing collaboration with Harmonic, including conformance testing with Harmonic’s ProStream 2000, is a significant validation of the growing options we provide our service provider customers for their IPTV deployments.”

“Harmonic’s ProStream 2000 is the industry’s first H.264 digital splicer to complete Microsoft conformance testing, and features multi-channel and multi-service capabilities within a compact single rack unit (1-RU) chassis,” said Marios Stylianou, Product Manager at Harmonic Inc. “A key element of Harmonic’s ad insertion solution portfolio, the technically advanced ProStream 2000 maintains high video quality, resulting in greater scalability and lower costs for operators. Further enhancements, such as improved throughput capacity, selective encryption support and SMPTE 2022 forward error correction (FEC) support are also available with a software upgrade.”

Microsoft Mediaroom enables unique connected TV features and experiences, such as simultaneous recording of multiple high-definition and standard-definition TV channels, personal media sharing, whole-home and remote digital video recording (DVR), and multiple picture-in-picture scenarios. The award-winning platform is delivering connected TV experiences to more than 1.5 million subscribers worldwide.

Harmonic’s ad insertion portfolio of solutions for telco IPTV service providers includes Harmonic’s DiviCom® Electra® 7000 HD H.264 encoders, Electra 5400 SD H.264 encoders, and DiviCom Ion™ SD H.264 encoders, all of which have previously completed Mediaroom compliance testing. Other components of the complete advertising solution include CLEARcut™ offline content preparation and pre-conditioning, NMX Digital Service Manager™ for monitoring and control, and SCTE 30 compliant ad servers.

The ProStream 2000 H.264 digital video splicing solution, along with Harmonic’s fully integrated, next-generation ad insertion product offering, will be on display at TelcoTV booth #627, taking place in Anaheim, California from November 11-13.