Envivio Inaugurates New R&D Center in the Presence of Patrick Devedjian, French Minister of the Industry

Envivio Inaugurates New R&D Center in the Presence of Patrick Devedjian, French Minister of the Industry Envivio Celebrates Inauguration With Demonstrations Highlighting the Maturity of Its MPEG-4 Products and Solutions RENNES, France, Jan. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- After a 250 percent increase of its sales in 2004, Envivio expanded its Research and Development capacity with a new R&D center, which will allow Envivio to match the growing demand for its MPEG-4 products and solutions. This announcement followed the French government decision, on December 23, 2004, to select MPEG-4 as the compression standard for broadcasting High Definition (HD) television for terrestrial digital pay-TV channels. In a show of support of this decision, Patrick Devedjian, French Minister of the Industry, Bernadette Malgorn, Prefete and Jean-Yves Le Drian, President du Conseil Regional of Brittany were all present to celebrate the inauguration. "We were very proud to inaugurate this new R&D center in presence of the Minister, our partners, and customers. 2004 marked the beginning of the MEG-4 standard adoption in France. 2005 will mark the rapid acceleration of this movement in France and around the world. MPEG-4 technology and the Envivio products have reached the maturity required for immediate world-wide deployment," said Julien Signes, President of Envivio. During the inauguration of its new R&D center, Envivio demonstrated, along with key customers and partners, innovative solutions based on the MPEG-4 standard. These demonstrations illustrated the maturity of the MPEG-4 (H264) products and solutions of Envivio and its partners. The following demonstrations were presented: Sigma Designs, a leader in system-on-chip decoders for digital media receivers and DVD players, demonstrated with Envivio the first system-on-chip able to decode MPEG-4 HD signals. Envivio also showed its ability to encode high definition video in the MPEG-4 format. It was a major step towards the availability of decoding terminals that will support any upcoming standards. "We have been working with Envivio on MPEG-4 technologies for 5 years, because they are an MPEG-4 worldwide specialist. By combining Envivio and Sigma Designs MPEG-4 products, we can offer, with our partners, a complete solution to support all new high definition television services," said Thinh Tran, CEO of Sigma Designs. TF1, a major French television broadcaster, demonstrated with Envivio a solution that provides high definition television over ADSL and on mobile receivers. TF1 has been collaborating with Envivo to create several demonstrations to showcase high definition television over ADSL and Mobile TV. Most recently, they have broadcast high definition MPEG-4 AVC (H264) content at a low bit rate. In early January 2004, TF1 and Envivio collaborated on MPEG-4 compression evaluations for broadcasting SD and HD content over satellite networks, terrestrial networks, mobile terrestrial networks, and ADSL networks. The wide range of possibilities offered by MPEG-4 makes it possible to support various applications that require a reduction and an optimization of broadcast support bandwidth. During the "Mondial de l'Auto" show in September 2004, TF1 demonstrated the maturity of its application, thanks to the technologies developed by Envivio. The privileged relationship between Envivio and TF1 has allowed both R&D teams to make great progress forward in this domain. Envivio, Highdeal, and NetCentrex demonstrated a complete television over ADSL system that included features such as definition and pricing of services (Highdeal), voice over IP (NetCentrex), and MPEG-4 video over IP (Envivio). The combined solution, developed within the iPlay3 Consortium, has received the prestigious Frost & Sullivan VoIP Equipment and Network Infrastructure "Product of the Year" Award for 2005. Alain Fernando-Santana, Managing Partner of the IPlay3 Consortium, discussed the strategic importance of choosing Envivio MPEG-4 technology, "Choosing Envivio as a video partner was fundamental for the success of the Consortium. We had to be the first against our competitors and Envivio's video solutions have given us our winning advantage." Thales Broadcast and Multimedia, the leading world wide broadcast products and systems supplier, demonstrated with Envivio a television solution using the DVB-H and MPEG-4 standards. This solution enables television services for mobile devices. Envivio also demonstrated the mobile television solution adopted by the "Mobile Broadcasting Company," also know as MBCo, in Japan, who launched the first worldwide mobile television service in 2004. "The decision to work with Envivio was reached after we had gained a sufficient level of confidence in not only Envivio's industry-leading MPEG-4 codec technology, but also in its capabilities to meet our very high expectations in terms of quality products and services," said Koichi Minemura, Vice-President of MBCo. "MBCo considers the collaboration with Envivio as one of the most important accomplishments for both companies," he added. Envivio also demonstrated 4Forum, a solution that uses MPEG-4 for recording and broadcasting interactive presentations which has already been deployed by corporations, government agencies, and universities such as Adobe, the European Community, the European Parliament, and Cornell University. At Cornell, 4Forum is being used by the University Medical Center. "Envivio has elegantly succeeded in creating a turnkey solution that captures in real time, both the video of faculty student interaction, as well as the high-resolution medical imaging or computer graphics essential to the medical school curriculum," said Dr Steven Erde, Director, Office of Academic Computing, Cornell University Medical Center. "The fact that a single encoding system can both stream in real time, and capture into a single interactive MPEG-4 file for on-demand viewing at a later time, was essential for our students in the Middle East (there is an eight hour time difference between New York and Qatar). We also needed an architecture that was flexible, standards based, and supported the wide range of desktop and server platforms that we use at Cornell. With 4Forum, Envivio has hit the sweet spot for all these requirements!" Netgem, a leading provider of interactive technologies for digital TV, signed a partnership agreement with Envivio in the presence of the French Minister of Industry. The agreement offers end-to-end MPEG-4 digital solutions for terrestrial and ADSL television services, including high definition television services. "The objective of our partnership with Envivio is to offer consumers quality high-definition services with the assurance of end-to-end compatibility," said Joseph Haddad, CEO of Netgem. About Envivio Envivio is a leading provider of complete MPEG-4 solutions for broadcasters, enterprises, and service providers. The company has established itself as the most experienced creator of high-quality MPEG-4 solutions that enable customers to build new revenue streams and use the efficiencies of delivering content to the full range of MPEG-4 capable devices. The Envivio solution includes various components to create, encode, protect, manage, and distribute MPEG-4 content. NOTE: Envivio is a registered trademark, and 4Forum is a trademark of Envivio, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. All trademarks used herein, whether recognized or not, are the properties of their respective companies. Media Contacts Envivio Inc. Barry Strauss Director, Marketing Communications 650-243-2718 bstrauss@envivio.com Source: Envivio, Inc. CONTACT: Barry Strauss, Director, Marketing Communications, of Envivio Inc., +1-650-243-2718, or bstrauss@envivio.com Web site: http://www.envivio.com/ ------- Profile: International Entertainment