MUMBAI: Hong Kong's leading IT&T player PCCW's now Broadband TV has chosen Tandberg Television as its market-leading advanced compression solutions for a roll-out of HD over DSL to become the first Asian MPEG-4 AVC HD operator.

The deal expands on the two companies' existing relationship and will make now TV Asia's first advanced encoding HD operator, as it deploys Tandberg HD encoding solution for MPEG-4 AVC. With the Tandberg EN5990 MPEG-4 AVC encoder, now TV will be able to deliver a compelling HD service with sport, entertainment and news content in half the bandwidth that would have been required for the same picture quality with MPEG-2, states an official release.

The now pay-TV service launched in 2003 and has been using Tandberg Television Mpeg-2 encoding for its premium channels. The rapid growth of now TV's subscriber base was confirmed when the company announced that it had exceeded half a million customers. The new HD service will be a welcome extension which will enable PCCW to retain its lead in the highly competitive Hong Kong television market, the release adds.

Tandberg Television's Mpeg-4 AVC HD systems are already established with broadcasters and operators including DirecTV, BSkyB, JSAT and Premiere basing their HD services and trials on the encoding engine.