Magewell has released a new upgrade for its award-winning Ultra Stream family of live streaming encoder hardware that further enhances the devices' exceptional ease of use and versatility. Available in all new units and as a free firmware update for existing customers, version 1.3 adds flexible new recording modes alongside expanded streaming protocol support and various minor refinements.

Magewell's Ultra Stream encoders make live streaming remarkably simple even for non-professional users, enabling them to record or stream high-quality video with one click using on-device buttons, a browser-based web interface or an intuitive smartphone app. Designed for users who want to stream but may have minimal technical knowledge, the compact devices are ideal for addressing the increased need for live streaming created by today's stay-at-home and social distancing restrictions.

Deep-tech company iSIZE Technologies has today announced the closure of its first seed funding round, raising a total of £740k from figures including Patrick Pichette, partner at Inovia Capital and ex- Google CFO; TD Veen AS, a notable Norwegian family office; and a number of other CDL investors. This round brings iSize total funding to date to over £1.3m.

The round was led by some of the leading tech investors of the inaugural Creative Destruction Lab programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. iSIZE graduates the accelerator programme this month alongside only nine others, from over 250 applications, after an intensive nine-month programme.

iSIZE specialises in deep learning for video delivery and has developed a deep perceptual 'precoder' - a software solution that uses AI-trained to optimise visual quality in order to save video bitrate during encoding. Its flagship product, BitSave, available both as a SaaS platform at bitsave.tech and for on-premise use, reduces encoding bitrates by up to 40%, while at the same time enhancing video perceptual quality. This results in substantial data, energy and cost savings for both the company hosting the video and the end consumer.

Magewell has been named to the second annual Streaming Media Producer 25 list of the leading technology companies driving advances in live streaming media production. The Streaming Media Producer 25 recognizes innovative companies that enable, enhance and streamline the workflows of live video producers – particularly those who need the mobility, agility, and versatility to deliver great work, regardless of the venue or production conditions.

“The Streaming Media Producer 25 highlights companies who develop and manufacture gear that not only demonstrates promise or prowess in one or more stages of the live production and streaming process, but also fits well as part of a kit that makes the overall workflow successful,” said Steve Nathans-Kelly, editor of Streaming Media Producer.

The 2020 edition marks the second time that Magewell has been named to the Streaming Media Producer 25. Since its selection to the inaugural list last year, the company has continued to introduce new products and expanded features that help a diverse range of content producers create, deliver and display high-quality streams easily, efficiently and cost-effectively. Magewell has also made the transition to IP-based production workflows affordable and practical with new models in its Pro Convert family of NDI^® encoders and decoders.

Magewell today announced a new upgrade of its free Capture Express recording application that expands the software's streaming capabilities. Version 3.2 adds new support for multiple streaming technologies including the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol developed and open-sourced by Haivision.

While Magewell capture devices feature extensive compatibility with popular third-party software for streaming, live production, web conferencing, lecture capture and more, the Capture Express software offers Magewell users a lightweight, dedicated tool for recording, previewing or streaming input sources. Originally designed to help users easily verify their input signals and capture devices, Capture Express has evolved into a simple yet full-fledged capture application supporting video up to 4K at 60 frames per second.

Version 3.0 of Capture Express initially offered easy recording and previewing functionality, and the subsequent version 3.1 added the ability to stream H.264-encoded video using the RTMP protocol. Now, version 3.2 further expands the software's streaming flexibility with support for the SRT protocol as well as MPEG-TS over UDP or RTP. Enabling secure, reliable, low-latency video delivery over unpredictable networks, SRT ensures high-quality streaming experiences even over the public internet. Magewell is a member of the SRT Alliance.

Hiltron Communications announces the completion of a custom-designed turnkey TVRO satellite platform for Nilesat, one of the largest Middle East telecommunication networks. The new installation is a fully L-band-over-fibre integrated downlink which covers all mediator satellites in the range from 30° west to 100° east, operating in C and Ku bands simultaneously.

"Located at our ground station in Giza, the new downlink gives us the reliability and flexibility we needed for backing up our existing fixed TVRO antennas," says Nilesat Head of Ground Segment Engineer Osama Tantawy. "Incoming signals from all antennas on the new platform, 32 feeds in total, are connected to the master control room via fibre-optic links. Hiltron has produced and integrated a complete solution including its HMCS monitoring and control software. The company worked closely with us from initial design right through to factory acceptance test, onsite installation, commissioning and training. The project was completed successfully and on time thanks to the experience and teamwork of everyone involved."

Bitmovin, a world leader in innovative cloud-based video streaming solutions, has announced its ‘Bitmovin Live: NAB Edition’ will take place between 13th - 24th April. The fully-fledged virtual experience will bring the action of NAB Show from Las Vegas to the cloud in the form of lab sessions, partner pop-ups and webinars. Attendees will also see live demos of Bitmovin’s innovative portfolio of solutions including Encoding, Player, and Analytics and learn how they are delivering cutting-edge online entertainment experiences to audiences around the world.

Switch Media, a world leader in online video technology, has partnered with SpringServe, a leading US-based independent ad platform provider whose technology is purpose-built for video and OTT. Switch Media’s server-side ad insertion (SSAI) technology has been fully integrated with SpringServe’s ad platform to provide value-added services to OTT providers.

OTT companies that require dynamic ad insertion (DAI) also need an ad server. DAI enriches the current ad inventory – creating more addressable non-cookie-based advertising opportunities. SpringServe’s advertising platform integrated with Switch Media’s SSAI capability helps content owners to monetize their inventory effectively. Using the combined solution means that no additional time is required to test and validate integration. Users have the flexibility to add new data and features to drive targeting and additional platforms can easily be added using a centralized solution.

iSize Technologies, the London-based deep-tech company specializing in deep learning for video delivery, are introducing BitSave v.2, the next-generation ‘precoder’ for perceptual optimization of video content prior to subsequent encoding.

BitSave v.2 is a pixel-to-pixel neural-network solution that optimizes video frames before the pixels reach the video compression software according to the latest advances in perceptual quality metrics. It enhances details of the areas of each frame that affect the perceptual quality score of the content after encoding and attenuates details that are not important.

This is designed to optimally balance perceptual quality against encoding bitrate. The solution is data-driven, trained on large image and video datasets, with no hand-crafted parameters.

It incurs a single-frame latency, can be used with any third-party video encoder with no changes in the encoding pipeline, and can run in real-time for up to 4K resolution.

VITEC, a worldwide leader in advanced video encoding and streaming solutions, today announced it has launched an early adopter program for its enterprise customers to deploy and test its latest radical innovation, EZ TV Player Lite™. The new EZ TV Player Lite HTML5 browser-based player is a central component of the company's award-winning EZ TV IPTV & Digital Signage Platform, serving more than a million users in the corporate, government, military, and sports venue sectors.

HTML5 has become the technology of choice in the enterprise video industry, despite significant compromises in infrastructure costs, latency, and duplication of video streams due to the absence of multicast video support. VITEC's latest patent-pending technology uniquely enables multicast delivery of live and recorded video streams, all the way to enterprise users' computers, without going through multi-unicast distribution servers. The innovative EZ TV Player Lite solution is an intuitive HTML5 application that enables organizations to scale live multicast video services to any size user base without the major costs associated with traditional on-premise transcoding equipment, CDN subscriptions, and costly seat-licenses that result in compromised network bandwidth utilization.

VITEC, a worldwide leader in advanced video encoding and streaming solutions, today announced it will display the flexible IPTV, digital signage, and video wall capabilities of its EZ TV IPTV & Digital Signage Platform in Booth 14-M200 at ISE 2020. For the first time, the new EZ TV Player Lite™ will be on display. The patent pending EZ TV Lite™ technology enables multicasting of live streams directly to enterprise users' computers, without going through multi-unicast distribution servers. This unique solution enables organizations to scale live video services without the costs of on-premise transcoding equipment, CDN subscriptions, and costly seat licenses. The multicast-to-the-edge, plugin-free HTML5 player simplifies IPTV distribution complexity and manageability.

"In the last 10 years, we've seen an increasing demand for streaming solutions that can address the widely varied IT infrastructure and content requirements of enterprise customers," said Bruno Teissier, International Sales and Marketing Director, VITEC. 

VITEC, a worldwide leader in advanced video encoding and streaming solutions, today announced the strategic acquisition of IPtec Inc., a developer and manufacturer of industry-leading solutions for low-latency transfer of telemetry and video-over-IP networks. This acquisition is the third the company has made within this vertical in the last 18 months, continuing VITEC's growth in broadcast contribution and remote production.

"IPtec is highly respected in the military and broadcast verticals," said Kevin Ancelin, VP Worldwide Broadcast Sales, VITEC. "IPtec introduces the benefits of J2K, MPEG-2, and legacy H.264 4:2:2 10-bit codec support, as well as a full duplex encoder/decoder and a telemetry-to-IP gateway that complement VITEC's portfolio of high-quality, low-latency HEVC codecs. Together, our solutions will provide customers with a purpose-built technology platform capable of delivering broadcast-quality media streams even under the most extreme conditions."

Hiltron Communications reports strong demand for its HCS-4 satcom system controller which has been integrated into various projects for customers in Europe, the Middle East and Far East.

An innovative recent implementation has been for one of the Middle East's largest telecommunication service-providers. This includes a switching and control system for Swedish Microwave optical low noise block downconverters. The HCS-4 powers and monitors the downconverters, checking for faults such as channel interrupts. If an interrupt is detected, the HCS-4 automatically switches to a backup signal source. Three downconverters are connected via optical fibre in a two-active-plus-one-backup configuration.

"The Middle East system follows on from the recent completion of a large project for a leading European satellite network operator," says Hiltron Managing Director Antonio Monteverde. "This included the integration of a 12U rack of monitoring equipment at 50 separate locations around the world, each with an HCS-4 as the control interface. Every system was pre-assembled and fully tested at our Backnang headquarters prior to on site integration."

Bitmovin, a world leader in online video technology, is teaming up with the University of Klagenfurt and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW) in a multi-million Euro research project to uncover techniques that will enhance the video streaming experiences of the future.

The joint project establishes a dedicated research team to investigate potential new tools and methodologies for encoding, transport and playback of live and on demand video using the HTTP Adaptive Streaming protocol that is widely used by online video and TV providers. The resulting findings will help empower the creation of next generation solutions for higher quality video experiences at lower latency, while also potentially reducing storage and distribution costs.

The final ISE exhibition in Amsterdam before the show’s move to Barcelona is shaping up to be a big one for video capture, conversion and streaming innovator Magewell. Exhibiting in stand 8-G475 from February 11 to 14, the company will feature the global debuts of new products alongside the first ISE showings of several recently unveiled solutions.

Making its world premiere at ISE 2020, the ultra-compact, power-efficient Eco Capture SDI 4K Plus M.2 card captures 4K video at 60 frames per second over a single-link, 12G-SDI interface for use with popular AV software applications. Four additional models in the Eco Capture family will also be shown, as well as the company’s popular Pro Capture series of PCIe cards and USB Capture line of external capture devices.

Magewell will also showcase the industry’s broadest range of low-latency NDI® hardware converters to help simplify the transition to AV over IP for both integrators and end users. The Pro Convert family now offers six NDI encoder models and two decoders, including the recently-released Pro Convert for NDI to HDMI decoder for transforming NDI streams into high-quality HDMI baseband outputs.

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."