CCTV Launches China's First HDTV Service with TANDBERG Television MPEG-2 Encoding System.

BEIJING & SOUTHAMPTON, England -- TANDBERG Television (OSE:TAT) announced today that it is providing the professional video compression systems to enable China's first national high definition (HD) TV roll-out. The new HDTV service is being deployed to provide a state-of-the-art television infrastructure for China and to ensure that millions of people in China have access to superior HD content. The HD service, the first of its kind in China, features movies, TV series, documentaries and 3-dimensional animated pictures.

HD is the immediate future for Chinese broadcasting, with the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing already being hailed as the 'High Definition Games'. Additionally, the Chinese government has set a deadline of 2015 for the culmination of the country's mass migration to digital TV and the nationwide switch-off of analog broadcasting. NDT, partner of the country's largest broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), selected TANDBERG Television to provide an MPEG-2 head-end system which it has been trialling over the past six months. Following these successful trials, the service is now being rolled out nationally and is already being used by CCTV to provide HDTV to multiple digital cable head-ends across China. The HD video delivery system is based on the superior bandwidth-reducing capabilities of the TANDBERG E5780 MPEG-2 HD encoder, which has field-proven capabilities in large-scale deployments.

"Our relationship with TANDBERG Television spans over 8 years of successful collaboration. Today we are working closer than ever in order to harness its technology lead to provide complete HD coverage across China," says Andrew Lo, CEO, NDT.

"We are honored to be helping CCTV to make this milestone move to HDTV and to deliver a superior television experience to the people of China," says Geng Liang, General Manager of TANDBERG Television China. "We also look forward to making an important contribution to the HD transmission of the 2008 Beijing Olympics."

The TANDBERG E5780 is an industry leading high definition MPEG-2 encoder providing rapid on-air capabilities and ease of use features. Offering both SD and HD encoding modes, it is ideal for professional ATSC and DVB Broadcasters. It can encode at multiple profiles in both High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) modes.

About TANDBERG Television

Whether it's advanced compression systems, on-demand or interactive television, TANDBERG Television delivers the technology and expertise that is moving digital video forward. The company's award-winning solutions are used by the world's leading network operators, broadcasters and content owners to deliver new viewer experiences and advertising opportunities. With a broad suite of open, standards-based products, TANDBERG Television offers the highest quality digital TV solutions including IPTV, HDTV, video-on-demand, advertising on-demand, and interactive TV applications to customers in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa. For more information, please visit www.tandbergtv.com.