Harmonic has announced that WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC, the first commercially licensed HD TV broadcast station in the United States, deployed Harmonic's digital video solutions for a unique broadcast application. Using Harmonic's DiviCom MPEG-2 HD encoders, WRAL was able to provide real-time broadcast delivery of four simultaneous basketball games in the 1080i HD format to the regional cable operator during the recent NCAA National Collegiate Basketball Tournament. The simultaneous HD broadcast was made possible by leveraging the ultra-high compression efficiency of the MV 500 MPEG-2 encoder.

The technology of the MV 500 allowed WRAL to provide the delivery of the four simultaneous NCAA basketball games without sacrificing any of the video quality of WRAL's over-the-air HD and SD TV broadcasts. Harmonic's latest-generation IP-based MPEG-2 solutions, including the Electra 5000 multichannel MPEG-2 SD encoders and the ProStream stream processing platform with DiviTrackIP distributed statistical multiplexing capabilities, are also being deployed by WRAL for its broadcast ATSC service.

"Harmonic's superior compression efficiencies and flexible architecture allow WRAL to advance broadcast services without compromising our ability to deliver the highest quality HD experience to our viewers," said Pete Sockett, director of engineering and operations for WRAL. "Harmonic's DiviCom encoders and DiviTrack statistical multiplexing solutions have consistently kept us ahead of the competition since our first deployment in 1999, and now we are excited to be the first TV station to deploy the new Electra 5000 platform in an ATSC broadcast environment."

Harmonic's family of DiviCom encoders includes both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) systems for SD or HD. For MPEG-2 applications, the MV 500 HD encoder and Electra 5000 SD encoder leverage Harmonic's longstanding record of compression leadership. DiviTrackIP distributed statistical multiplexing further enhances bandwidth efficiency by adjusting bit rates of channels in the pool according to the complexity of the video. The entire video infrastructure is managed by Harmonic's NMX Digital Service Manager, a powerful set of tools for monitoring and managing compressed digital video and audio services.