US / Italy : Harmonic Inc. announced that its Rhozet Carbon Coder video transcoding solution has been selected by 3 Italia as part of its cross-media strategy, designed to deliver mobile TV over its DVB-H network. Rhozet Carbon Coder was chosen for media transcoding due to its extensive format support, the high quality of its format output, as well as its transcoding speed and automated features.

In 2006, 3 Italia was the world’s first mobile operator to offer a DVB-H mobile TV service. Since the service launch, 3 Italia’s DVB-H mobile TV subscriber count has grown substantially to over 850,000. 3 Italia is currently implementing its mobile TV and Internet cross-media strategy, which brings broadcast TV, thematic channels, TV 2.0 and social networking to the mobile handset. Rhozet Carbon Coder is used to quickly and automatically transcode this content and make it available to 3 Italia’s DVB-H network.

“Carbon Coder’s automation, performance and scalability make it possible for 3 Italia to rapidly integrate a wide array of broadcast and Internet content into DVB-H format, while delivering the quality their subscribers desire,” said David Trescot, Vice President of the Rhozet Business Unit at Harmonic Inc. “To be chosen as an essential technology component of 3 Italia’s mobile TV service points to just how effective the system is for delivering the high volume of content for this new generation of mobile services.”

Harmonic’s Rhozet Carbon Coder is a universal transcoding application that facilitates the transfer of media between a variety of platforms, including acquisition, editing, playout, archive, the Internet and mobile devices. Carbon Coder can run as a stand-alone application or as part of a multi-node, fully-automated rendering farm. Carbon Coder provides high-performance, scalable and cost-effective transcoding for a broad range of business environments, from specialized studios to enterprise-scale installations.

About 3 Italia

3 Italia is Hutchison Whampoa’s Mobile Media Company operating in Italy. After winning the bid for a UMTS licence in 2000, it launched its services in 2003 and now leads the UMTS market in Italy with its 8,45 million customers, thanks to a wide range of Internet, multimedia and video communication services, and to its mobile entertainment, music, news, cinema, sport and TV. In 2005 3 Italia got the national licence of digital TV operator, and in June 2006 it launched the world’s first Mobile Digital TV with DVB-H technology. 3 Italia has confirmed itself at the forefront in the development of 3G mobile technologies, also thanks to the launch of the first HDSPA offer in Italy, in April 2006, and to the implementation of HSUPA that gives access to mobile broadband and can reach a data transmission speed of 7.2 Mbps in download and 1.4 Mbps in Upload. In June 2007, thanks to agreements with Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, eBay and Skype, 3 Italia launched XSeries, the first all-inclusive offer that extends the use of many applications and functions of Internet broadband to 3G phones. In October 2007 3 Italia and Skype launched 3 Skypephone, the first mobile phone expressly dedicated to VoIP and designed for the mass market. Finally, in June 2008, TV and “free Internet” became the pillar of 3 Italia’s “crossmedia” strategy, designed to offer mobile TV and Internet all in a single object, pocket-sized and personal, combining broadcast TV, thematic channels, TV 2.0, social networking and all the richness of the Internet world.

About Harmonic Inc.

Harmonic Inc. is a leading provider of versatile and high performance video solutions that enable service providers to efficiently deliver the next generation of broadcast and on-demand services including high definition, video-on-demand, network personal video recording and time-shifted TV. Cable, satellite, broadcast and telecom service providers can increase revenues and lower operational expenditures by using Harmonic’s digital video, broadband optical access and software solutions to offer consumers the compelling and personalized viewing experience that is driving the business models of the future.