Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., has just released an announcement concerning the Fujitsu IP-9500 MPEG-4 AVC HD Encoder that will go a long way in helping broadcasting companies transmit remote HD content via existing satellite configurations without incurring high overhead charges using a solitary satellite channel. The Fujitsu IP-9500 is currently on parade at HD World this week, boasting broadcast quality video transmission at low bit-rates as well as low latency, bringing items such as HD news content to be to be transmitted in the same satellite bandwidth as standard definition (SD). All this is made possible at a fraction of the cost of competing products.

According to Vic Herring, senior director, new products group, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., “The IP-9500 is ideal for today’s HD satellite news gathering. As a result of using innovative MPEG-4 AVC compression algorithms developed by Fujitsu Laboratories, the IP-9500 delivers HD quality at a very low latency, encoding and decoding video content at less than 300 milliseconds. Fujitsu anticipates that MPEG-4 AVC will become the industry standard to replace MPEG-2 for demanding HD applications such as SNG, pushing us to innovate products for a rapidly growing HD market. We’re inviting major broadcast, satellite and cable networks to review and qualify our product.”

While those residing in the US might think that the Fujitsu IP-9500 has been released but for a while, folks in Japan are already taking advantage of this in a big scale. Specifications include support for both 1080i and 720p formats with video data rates ranging from 4-20 Mbps in both standard and low latency. You’ll be able to enjoy high picture quality down to 4Mbps, allowing for high quality HD content to be transmitted in a single DVB-S/S2 satellite channel. Companies on the other hand could save an extra 50% in operating costs since they no longer have to use a couple of channels for MPEG-2 encoded data. The encoder appliance is priced at $49,950 and is available for qualification by all broadcast and cable networks.

Press Release