Ericsson Television

Ericsson Television, formerly Tandberg Television, is a company providing MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-2 and HEVC encoding decoding and control solutions, plus stream processing, packaging, network adaption and related products, for Contribution & Distribution (C+D), IPTV, Cable, DTT, Satellite DTH and OTT.

Ericsson Television
Typesubsidiary of Ericsson
IndustryDigital VideoTelecommunicationsVOD
Founded1979
HeadquartersSouthampton, UK
Key people
Head of Media Processing & Delivery: Arpad Jordan Head of Media Platform Solutions: Shiva Patibanda
ProductsAdvanced video compression, linear, on-demand, and interactive television systems
Number of employees
Over 1100

The global headquarters are located in Southampton, England, with additional offices in Rennes, France.

The company was honored with its first Technology & Engineering Emmy Award in 2008 for the development of interactive Video-on-Demand infrastructure and signaling,[1] leading to large scale VOD implementations. It was also awarded another Emmy® in 2009 for Pioneering Development of MPEG-4 AVC systems for HDTV.[2] Then in 2011, for the Pioneering Development and Deployment of Active Format Description Technology and System.[3] In 2013, the company acquired another Emmy® award for the Pioneering Development Of Video On Demand (VOD) Dynamic Advertising Insertion.[4] Recently in 2014, Ericsson got its fifth Emmy® Award recognition for its work in developing pioneering JPEG2000 interoperability technology.[5]

History

Tandberg is a long-standing Norwegian company whose history goes back to the 1930s when it supplied domestic radio equipment. It grew into other areas during the decades after WW2 including a well-respected audio equipment manufacturer and its reel-to-reel tape recorders were sought after by HiFi enthusiasts.

The Kjelsas factory also started producing TV sets in 1960, and in 1966, a second TV plant was opened in Kjeller in Skedsmo. Color TVs were added to their lineup in 1969. In 1972, Tandberg purchased Radionette, another large Norwegian electronics firm that has just begun focusing on televisions. By 1976, TVs were Tandberg's major product and their factories employed 3,500. However, that same year a major economic downturn seriously disrupted the company, and by 1978 it was insolvent. A shareholder revolt removed Vebjorn Tandberg from control of the company, and he committed suicide in August. In December the company declared bankruptcy.

Tandberg Television, originally with headquarters in Lillestrom near Oslo, Norway, was formed in 1979 when the original Tandberg company split into Tandberg, Tandberg Data, and Tandberg Television.

After the breakup of 1979

In 1999, Tandberg Television entered into a £170 million agreement to acquire all the assets of NDS Group’s Digital-TV products business, the Digital Broadcasting Business (DBB), a subsidiary of The News Corporation group. After the acquisition, Tandberg Television could offer digital video compression encoders, multiplexers and modulation products for large satellite DTH systems, terrestrial networks and mobile news gathering solutions.

NDS Group itself was a merger in 1996 between News Corp's existing News Data Communications (NDC) based in Israel, a company that supplied smart cards to pay TV operators like Sky TV, and Digi-Media Vision (DMV) a video compression company that News had acquired in 1995, and had been the Advanced Products Division [APD] of National Transcommunications Limited [NTL] in the UK. NTL was itself established in 1990 as the privatised Engineering arm of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the UK commercial broadcasting regulator and operator of all commercial terrestrial television and radio transmitters. APD was the Experimental and Development (E&D) department of the IBA.

Much earlier, in 1987, Tandberg Television and the IBA's E&D and Satellite Engineering groups had worked together to build a satellite broadcasting system for the UK based on the ill-fated MAC system operated by Sky's rival British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). BSB and Sky merged in 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) which has become a significant broadcaster in the UK.

Since 1999, Tandberg Television has acquired four US-based digital media companies. In October 2005, they acquired Los Angeles-based Goldpocket Interactive, an interactive technology provider for digital television, the Internet and wireless/mobile networks. Further, in February 2006, they acquired SkyStream Networks, a provider of Internet Protocol MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC video delivery solutions, based in Sunnyvale, California. Later the same year, they acquired Los Angeles-based Internet TV software developer Zetools.

In April 2007, Tandberg Television was acquired by Ericsson. Ericsson Television operates as an independent entity. In January 2018, it was announced that Ericsson has partnered with One Equity Partners, a private equity firm with expertise in media and telecom investments, to further develop Media Solutions. Ericsson will retain 49 percent of the shares in the company.

In 2018, Ericsson completed the successful consolidation of all acquired businesses connected to Tandberg Television/Ericsson Television, along with Microsoft Mediaroom, Azuki Reach, and Fabrix Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP), plus its own Media Delivery Network (MDN); This combined business was rebranded as MediaKind, and fully independent of Ericsson; It is now 51% owned by One Equity Partners, with Ericsson retaining a 49 percent share interest.

References
  1. N2 Broadband part of Tandberg Television Emmy Award's for the development of interactive Video-on-Demand infrastructure and signalling Archived 2008-05-09 at the Wayback Machine
  2. "DirecTV and Tandberg Television Pioneering Development of MPEG-4 AVC systems for HDTV". Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  3. "Ericsson Television Pioneering Development and Deployment of Active Format Description Technology and System". Archived from the original on 2014-07-26. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  4. "N2 Broadband (Ericsson)'s Emmy award for the Pioneering Development Of Video On Demand (VOD) Dynamic Advertising Insertion". Archived from the original on 2014-07-26. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  5. Ericsson awarded 5th Emmy® Award for JPEG2000 interoperability
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