IRIS Networks, based in Nashville, TN, has installed a Harris IPTV headend featuring NetVX MPEG-4/H.264 video encoding for the delivery of SD and HD terrestrial TV channels to rural independent telecommunications companies.

IRIS Networks is made up of 11 independent telephone companies in Tennessee, southern Kentucky and Virginia. The organization’s Nashville point-of-presence (POP) serves as a centralized distribution point for the delivery of 16 channels of local off-air station programming from Nashville and Knoxville, to participating telecommunications companies, all of which offer TV services to rural areas underserved by traditional cable providers.

The Harris IPTV headend installed at IRIS Networks’ POP in Nashville includes Harris Videotek DDM-800 ATSC demodulators and NetVX MPEG-2 decoders to receive and decode the TV signals from off-air antennas. NetVX ENC-A21 MPEG-4/H.264 encoders compress and transport the multiple SD and HD TV channels over a fiber-based IP backbone to the rural telephone companies that deliver the channels to subscribers at home and elsewhere.

For more information, visit www.harris.com.