Telefónica Vivo, Ericsson Bring Next-Generation TV to Brazil

Brazil’s largest communications service provider Telefónica Vivo has chosen Ericsson’s AVP 4000 Encoder Family to boost its TV viewing experience for consumers. Furthermore, Telefónica Vivo has begun trials to demonstrate the ability to provide a 4K experience in Brazil.

With more content available for more video-enabled devices than ever before, maximizing video delivery over available bandwidth and multiple networks is vital to the success of current and future consumer TV experiences. Ericsson’s AVP 4000 is based on the company’s first-ever professional video chip and enables all broadcasters, TV service providers and operators to achieve greater velocity and efficiency in deploying new video services that meet consumer demand.

Rafael Sgrott, Video and Content director of Telefónica Vivo, says: “We are excited by the growing demand for new, innovative TV experiences and by the countless opportunities this creates, so it is vital that the TV experience we provide to viewers is of the highest possible quality. We were pleased to draw upon the expertise and experience of Ericsson for this very important challenge.”

By addressing all applications, codecs, resolutions and profiles, Ericsson’s AVP single platform eases integration, expansion, training, repair and upgrades, considerably lowering the overall cost of ownership. It offers the highest performance and broadest capability in the industry on a single platform across all applications, from standard definition to HD 1080p50/60, 3DTV and UHDTV, and all codecs including MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and JPEG 2000.

Core to Ericsson’s AVP 4000 high-performance compression platform is Ericsson’s first ever in-house developed programmable video processing chip, which powers the most advanced video processing platform for TV delivery. The deal with Telefónica Vivo represents the first deployment of the chip in the Latin American market, clearly demonstrating industry acceptance of the chip’s ability to provide the highest-performance video-processing power. The chip delivers the necessary performance and control to develop and implement algorithms required to achieve the highest bandwidth efficiency across all delivery networks.

Ronaldo Dias, Head of TV Compression, Latin America, Ericsson, says: “This is a breakthrough deal for Ericsson as it’s the first deployment in Latin America of the Ericsson AVP 4000 powered by our new video chip, as well as our first video-processing contract with Vivo – reaffirming our long-term innovation partnership with Telefónica. We are the only vendor that can blend a deep insight into consumer habits, expertise in the fields of networks, consulting and systems integration along with 20 years of video- compression technology leadership to help operators maximize their revenue opportunities in this rapidly evolving area of media consumption.”

Ericsson predicts that by 2020, there will be 50 billion connected devices, 15 billion of which will be video-enabled. To meet changing consumer demands, operators must deploy new services within the constraints created by limited bandwidth, spectrum and legacy networks.

Ericsson’s compression team has been instrumental in developments that helped trigger the transformation of the TV landscape, and has been recognized with multiple Emmy Awards – including one in 2008 for the pioneering development and deployment of MPEG-4 AVC systems for HDTV.