ATLANTA, GA — (Marketwired) — 10/15/13 — , a leading innovator in advanced digital video solutions, today announced an upgrade to both the widely deployed ICE Broadcast System and to the industry-s most dense and reliable multiscreen platform. The ICE Broadcast System upgrade enables HD 4:1 (Four 1080 HD services in a 256 QAM channel) through advanced compression techniques with enhanced treatment of text and tickers, where compression artifacts can be most visible. The : Dense Transcoder upgrade integrates the existing transcoding, packaging and streaming capability with an integrated origin server and storage interoperability for Catch-Up TV and network-PVR.

: The ICE Broadcast System led the way to 3:1 HD compression, receiving a perfect 5-diamond review in the process. With the IBS v4.5 upgrade, service providers will be able to confidently deploy 4:1 HD compression, realizing an additional 33% gain in network bandwidth.

“By focusing both on the entire picture, as well as the parts of the image most prone to noticeable distortion, we found the key to unlocking 4:1 HD quality,” said Ron Gutman, Imagine CTO and Founder. “Our goal for 4:1 is that any compressed content is equal or better quality than the received source 99% of the time. You can-t compress to 4:1 without allocating more bits to special features, and we-ve determined the features that matter to the human visual system including faces, face edges, text and scrolling tickers.”

: With 320 HD or 640 SD multiscreen profiles per server, less than 2 watts per stream and 100% system redundancy, the Dense Transcoding platform established a new bar for multiscreen transcoding performance. With the next: v1.1 SW upgrade, service providers can now deploy a single 2U server that not only transcodes, packages and encrypts hundreds of multiscreen services, but also stores those programs for 7 days of Catch-Up TV and also acts as an origin server.

“We continue to leverage our unique hybrid hardware/software architecture to extend the capability of our dense transcoding system, and time-shifted viewing is both the logical and most often-requested capability,” said Chris Gordon, Imagine VP of Product Marketing. “What really makes this solution work for our operator customers is the marriage of our advanced platform engineering with our network of mature ecosystem partners. We realize that creating truly differentiated solutions requires not only great systems technology but great partnerships, and are excited about the ecosystem developing around our Dense Transcoding platform.”

Imagine is showcasing the ICE Broadcast System and the Dense Transcoding platform at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo®, the cable telecommunications engineering show of the year, held in Atlanta, Oct. 22-24, booth #718.

Imagine Communications is a leading innovator in digital video solutions, enabling content providers and system operators to deliver bandwidth-intensive services with optimum video quality and Quality of Experience (QoE). Imagine-s products serve the digital IPTV and broadcast markets as well as emerging PersonalizedTV® applications such as multiscreen TV Anywhere, Network PVR (nPVR) and mobile video. Imagine is based in San Diego, Calif. with R&D in Israel. Imagine-s management team includes industry leaders with decades of experience delivering innovations in video communications. For more information, visit

The Imagine logo, ICE-Q, ICE, ICE Illustrate, Enabling PersonalizedTV and PersonalizedTV are registered trademarks of Imagine Communications, Inc. Other company, product and service names mentioned herein may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

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