EBU Selects TANDBERG Television Content Distribution Systems for a Summer of Sport

TANDBERG Television HD and SD solutions enabling coverage of a number of sporting events including the Tour de France and the Beijing Olympic Games

Southampton, UK . - TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group (NASDAQ:ERIC), today announced that it is providing a range of MPEG-2 video compression technologies to the European Broadcast Union (EBU), the world’s largest contribution network, for coverage of a strong line-up of high profile sporting events this summer. TANDBERG Television’s digital TV systems have already been and will continue to play a key role in the delivery of footage of both standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) sports action from the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing and the Tour de France, Roland Garros and Wimbledon, as well as all the most prominent football events of the season to more than 650 million viewers in 56 countries in and around Europe.

This premium sports content will be distributed to all EBU members over both satellite and fiber networks using a range of TANDBERG Television encoders and professional receivers. The system is enabled to support the latest DVB-S2 standard and to efficiently manage bandwidth for the most cost-effective delivery of the content. The deal builds on TANDBERG Television’s long-standing association with the EBU which has seen a close collaboration between the two organizations for almost 10 years.

’We have a strong relationship with TANDBERG Television and have continually combined the company’s industry leading technology with our own engineering excellence to make the EBU network one of the most advanced and efficient in the world,’ says Paolo Pusterla, Head of Strategy and Business Development for the EBU. ’With plenty of action, fast camera panning and detailed zooming, TV coverage of many sporting events is the most demanding content to capture. With millions of viewers throughout the globe watching these events it is essential that the equipment we use will deliver the best quality results faultlessly. Based on our 10 year history with TANDBERG Television we can be sure their technology will deliver from the winning sprint to the final whistle.’

The EBU’s relationship with TANDBERG Television started with the digitization of the organization’s satellite network in 1998 and the deployment of the world’s first 4:2:2 contribution system from TANDBERG Television. Since that time the organization has made a number of advanced steps using TANDBERG Television technologies including expanding network capacity through the use of fiber, and more recently increasing satellite capacity with the introduction of the latest DVB-S2 standard that has been pioneered by TANDBERG Television.

With increasing demand for material encoded in multiple formats, including MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC in both HD and SD, the EBU has selected a range of equipment from TANDBERG Television, including the TANDBERG E5782 MPEG-2 4:2:2 HD encoders and TANDBERG E5710 MPEG-2 SD encoders that offer an upgrade path from MPEG-2 SD to MPEG-4 AVC SD and HD. Also included are a number of TANDBERG TT1260 MPEG-2 4:2:2 Professional Receivers featuring DVB-S2, to ensure the most efficient distribution over satellite, and award-winning TANDBERG RX1290 Multi-Format Professional Receivers which are able to receive both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC HD and SD services.

’We are honored to be working with the EBU and to be able to put our name to such prestigious sports events such the Tour De France and the Beijing Olympics. This promises to be a summer of endless sports action, generating tremendous global interest where almost anything can happen ’ and when it does, we’ll have it covered,’ explains Eric Baron, President of TANDBERG Television EMEA. ’We are constantly striving to develop and enhance our product portfolio so that broadcasters and service providers the world over can rely on us to deliver live, uninterrupted coverage of the most prestigious events.’

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is the largest professional association of national broadcasters in the world. Headquartered in Geneva, and working on behalf of its members in the European area, the EBU negotiates broadcasting rights for major sports events, operates the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, organizes program exchanges, stimulates and coordinates co-productions, and provides a full range of other operational, commercial, technical, legal and strategic services. The EBU was founded in February 1950 by the pioneers of radio and television in Western Europe. Today, in addition to 75 active members in 56 countries of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the Union has 45 associate members in 29 countries further afield.