Harmonic announced today that it has improved the quality of mobile video with its DiviCom Electra MPEG-4 compression platform.

By applying its expertise and best practices in broadcast encoding, Harmonic said it can provide superior video quality at ultra-low bit-rates in formats including QVGA and SIF with the Electra 5400 standard definition (SD) H.264 encoders.

The platform is designed to work  with lower resolution applications such as video delivery to automobiles via satellite transmission or IP-based streaming to the PC and handheld devices.

"Support for additional resolutions brings Harmonic's world-class encoding and statistical multiplexing expertise to the mobile video market," said JC Morizur, Director of Digital Video Product Marketing at Harmonic Inc. "Now, operators can utilize this proven platform to offer advanced, revenue generating services including the transmission of live, broadcast quality video via satellite to automobiles and video streaming over IP networks."

Harmonic said its multi-resolution encoding technology employs the full set of advanced technologies developed by Harmonic for the Electra H.264 encoding platform including video pre-processing, dynamic noise reduction, full multi-pass hierarchical LookAhead compression and IP-based statistical multiplexing to deliver superior video quality at very low bit-rates.

The multi-pass LookAhead process was pioneered by Harmonic and uses a dedicated H.264 compression processor to fully analyze incoming video content and proactively apply highly efficient encoding strategies.

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