Harmonic leads encoder pack

Market researcher In-Stat has named Harmonic as the leading provider of encoder shipments in 2008, according to its new report Worldwide Real-Time Broadcast MPEG Encoder Market.

In-Stat says Harmonic was responsible for the shipment of more than 12,000 encoding channels to broadcast, cable, satellite and telecom video service providers.

“Even in today’s challenging economic environment, both MPEG-2 and AVC HD services continue to grow, as does conversion of the contribution and primary distribution segments to AVC,” said Michelle Abraham, In-Stat’s principal analyst for Converging Markets and Technologies, Multimedia. “Harmonic has consistently held a strong leadership position in MPEG-2 and AVC, and was the top encoder vendor in 2008. We expect their position to grow even stronger in 2009 following their recent acquisition of Scopus with the addition of the Ellipse contribution and distribution encoders to their solution portfolio.”

Since 1996, more than 60,000 MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) standard and high definition video channels have been provisioned using Harmonic’s DiviCom encoders.