AVIWEST, a leading provider of video contribution systems, announced today that the Public Authority for Radio and TV (PART) of the Sultanate of Oman deployed a complete AVIWEST solution to broadcast live coverage of the October 2019 Majlis Al-Shura elections, which take place every four years. PART selected the AVIWEST PRO3 Series HEVC bonded cellular transmitters, QUAD antennas, and StreamHub transceiver to broadcast live from any location, even in remote areas with limited connectivity. ApexTec served as the distributor, ensuring a seamless product deployment.

"For such an important event in the Sultanate, broadcasting live election footage with greater efficiency and simplicity was key," said Said Al Shreqi, director general of PART. "The AVIWEST solution offered us an affordable way to stream live, high-quality video successfully from any voting center in the region."

Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over IP, has been recognized with two industry awards: the Gold Award in the category of IP Broadcast Solutions – Distribution from Digital Media World, and a 2019 Product Innovation Award from TV Technology.

The cutting edge Zixi Software-Defined Video Platform was named the Digital Media Awards’ Gold Winner in the category of IP Broadcast Solutions – Distribution. The Zixi Software-Defined Video Platform is the tight integration of four crucial elements that enable broadcast-quality live video workflows to be intelligently and centrally provisioned, deployed, managed and monitored using software and integrated devices, regardless of the underlying network infrastructure. The Digital Media World Awards give recognition to companies that have used their products and services to push media opportunities forward and develop new techniques and possibilities in broadcast content creation, delivery and management.

The 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC software defined decoder from Cobalt Digital is a recipient of Future’s Product Innovation Award presented by TV Technology. Future’s Product Innovation Awards recognize excellence in manufacturing and are evaluated by a panel of engineers and industry experts. Winners are selected based on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency and performance for use in a broadcast TV/pro Video or broadcast/online radio environment.

The RIST enabled Cobalt® 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC 4K/AVC/MPEG-2 is a broadcast-grade, multi-standard, software defined decoder that easily met the criteria set forth by TV Technology. The card is designed to address the strictest requirements of today's broadcasters while providing a painless path to state-of-the-art decoding capabilities. It offers a flexible licensing structure allowing customers to manage CAPEX while simultaneously preparing for future growth. The platform, with single-channel 4K or dual-channel 2K video paths, supports MPEG-2, AVC (H.264) and HEVC (H.265) with resolution up to 4K.

“The Future Product Innovation Awards are now in their seventh year,” said Paul McLane, Future managing director content for media technology titles. “The program focuses attention on innovation, cost-effectiveness and reliability. We are proud to recognize such excellence in our industry.”

“We are honored to have our 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC recognized by TV Technology, a premiere publication and iconic industry resource, as a product that represents the best of 2019,” said Chris Shaw, Cobalt EVP of Sales & Marketing. “We always engineer our solutions to meet our customers’ needs, today and tomorrow, with emphasis on useful feature-sets as well as respect for budget economy, and this new decoder ticks every box.”

Winners receive an award for display and will be featured in TV Technology, the leading brand covering television and media technology. All nominated products are featured in the special Product Innovation Awards ebook which will be made available to more than 100,000 readers of Future’s Business to Business brands.

Today, quality is a critical success factor for video streaming services. Consumers want to watch video in the highest resolutions, with the lowest latency, on every screen. To deliver an amazing quality of experience (QoE) anywhere on any device, content providers and pay-TV operators need innovative content delivery solutions.

At CES 2020, Broadpeak® will showcase its groundbreaking solutions that provide the best video QoE through improved delivery within the operator's network, as well as inside the home network.  Demos will include:

• Gaining control over streaming quality: Broadpeak will give a sneak peak of its new solution that improves the quality of video streaming on any ABR screen — independently from the player. The solution can be used to reduce latency on live streams, deliver higher bit-rates for on-demand content and reduce video quality changes when networking conditions vary.

• Optimizing Wi-Fi: At CES 2020, Broadpeak will launch its new Wi-Fi Optimizer, which prioritizes video delivery over the other traffic in the home (e.g., video streaming vs. downloading a file), assuring optimum quality for consumers.

Promethean, a digital solution to dynamically programme interactive video overlays, has announced its collaboration with True Digital Group, the South East Asian leader in content and digital platforms, to release the new version of the TrueID TV Box application across South East Asia.

TrueID TV Box is the new set top box from one of Southeast Asia’s leading Pay TV platform operators (part of the CP Group) that enables viewers to watch sports and entertainment on live, linear and on-demand basis without the hassle of installation. The latest box release is expected to roll out to thousands of homes across the Christmas period. It is the country's first Android TV Box that meets Google standards, which crucially now includes the certification of Promethean Interactive Overlays. This enables True Digital Group to create a conduit between content and commerce for their TrueID TV Box users.

Promethean is an online platform for dynamically programming interactive video overlays for live and video content on the web, mobile and OTT platforms. It licences a tool that allows broadcasters to place contextual and relevant overlays onto live streams and VOD, delivering engaging customer interactions that drive measurable ROI. Promethean's solution is player agnostic and as such supports a wide range of third party players available today out of the box.

"We've been using the Promethean technology across our websites and mobile apps since the summer, which has led to double-digit click through rates and some very compelling advertising campaigns with great regional brands,” commented Reed Anderson, CTO at True Digital Group. "As we were building our new TrueID TV Box, we wanted to demonstrate the convergence between the viewing experience and the opportunities afforded by connectivity - and that means allowing the audience to interact with the content, whether through man of the match polls or the ability to order food for delivery straight from your TV."

ATEME, the emerging leader in video delivery solutions for broadcast, cable, DTH, IPTV and OTT announced that TV CULTURA, the Brazilian public broadcaster recognized worldwide for producing educational and cultural content, and part of Fundação Padre Anchieta, successfully implemented ATEME TITAN to realize 4K-UHD benefits for the first time during the live broadcast of the grand finale of Prelúdio 2019.

High-quality video content from the Prelúdio grand finale, a reality show dedicated to discovering talented classical musicians, was broadcast live on 11/24 in 4K-UHD from “Casa Sao Paulo Concert Hall” using ATEME’s TITAN UHD solution. The live event was transmitted via satellite to a dedicated 4K channel of the major local cable TV operator as well as to TV CULTURA’s YouTube channel.

Thanks to ATEME’s expertise in software video compression solutions, TV CULTURA successfully transmitted the event with premium video quality, full flexibility and future-proofing.

Nelson Faria, Engineering Director, TV CULTURA commented: “Our customers were given access to outstanding picture quality, with four-times more pixels and an enlarged color range, which made the picture more true to life.”

VITEC, a worldwide leader in advanced video encoding and streaming solutions, today announced that Minnesota United selected its award-winning EZ TV IPTV and Digital Signage Solution to control video feeds and signage to hundreds of screens installed throughout the new Allianz Field soccer stadium. As part of the new $250-million venue, EZ TV delivers a high-quality, low-latency live feed of the game and eye-catching digital signage, allowing fans to never miss a minute of action.

"We wanted to deliver the very best experience to our fans as well as our operators and advertising staff. The system can quickly, easily, and reliably distribute not only the game-day feed to every screen but also ensure that we are successfully deploying attention-grabbing and strategic campaigns with the signage content," said Cole Mayer, production engineer, Minnesota United. "It's a complex job, but VITEC's solution integrates all these capabilities into one platform that exceeded our operational and technological vision. With the power of VITEC, Allianz Field is one of the best, most technologically advanced soccer stadiums in the world."

Medialease has won best ‘Asset Finance Intermediary’ at the Leasing Life 2019 awards, which brings together the most successful and innovative businesses throughout Europe in the leasing industry. 2019 has been a busy year for Medialease and the company was delighted to have been recognised for this award by industry-leading panellists.

The award judges commented that Medialease showed excellent growth and had a highly-targeted asset/industry focus, providing strong value to a very specialised end user. Medialease were also deemed to have very clear empathy and support to its chosen market, which is reflected in its exceptionally-high repeat customer statistics.

Medialease arranges asset funding tailored to the needs of the broadcast, film, television, AV and live events markets. Its relationships with many of its customers go back several years, with broadcasters and post-production companies returning to Medialease at each phase of their business plans to upgrade equipment or improve facilities. With a deep understanding of audio and video-based industries, the company supplies editing, grading and audio equipment for post-production facilities, along with the latest 4K cameras and location playout equipment for the world’s biggest sports and motorsports broadcasters. For further information, please contact us on 01327 872531 or visit www.medialease.com.

Brightline, a leading manufacturer of energy efficient lighting systems, now offers technical support through Zoom for its resellers, integrators, and clients. The cloud-based videoconferencing system allows Brightline to program light fixtures remotely, re-focus, visually diagnose potential issues, and perform other troubleshooting. 

“Zoom service is ideal for time-critical issues,” explained Kathy Katz, Brightline managing partner. “You don’t have to struggle through a phone call without visuals or schedule onsite service. Zoom gives us ‘eyes’ in the room.”

To request a free Zoom technical call, contact technical support at techservice@brightlines.com.

Anevia, a leading provider of OTT and IPTV software solutions, for the expansion of its multiscreen TV service.

The expansion was driven by the exponential growth of the market locally, as well as geographical inroads of the multiscreen TV service into other South American countries. To scale up, the telecommunication service provider chose the Anevia Embedded Distributed Storage (EDS) technology, where the same servers are used for both computing and storage. This enables costs to be kept under control by halving the number of physical rack units needed.

The operator has also continued expanding its CDN infrastructure using Anevia’s NEA-CDN® solution which enables it to ensure high quality during football matches and other peak traffic events as well as supporting the cutting-edge features required for interactive OTT television.

"We are thrilled that Anevia’s technology has once again been trusted to deliver premium services for OTT television, after four years of spectacular success with this OTT offering in Argentina," says Anevia CEO Laurent Lafarge. "Our EDS technology is widely recognised to be much more reliable and scalable than a traditional NAS architecture. It enables TV operators to thrive as they scale up."