VOS360 Live Streaming Platform Provides Rapid Service Scaling for OTT Delivery

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Jan. 14, 2020 — Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Vidgo has launched a new OTT service powered by Harmonic's VOS®360 Live Streaming Platform. Vidgo's live TV streaming service featuring sports, news and entertainment, boasts more than 100 premium channels including ABC, Comedy Central, ESPN, Fox, and the NFL Network as well as a Latino package for Spanish-speaking viewers. By handling the complete end-to-end media processing and delivery workflow for Vidgo, Harmonic's VOS360 platform simplifies live streaming from source to screen, speeds up time to market for new channels and enables rapid service scaling.

"A large, diverse content catalog is critically important for an OTT streaming service to be successful, and Vidgo has set a high bar in this regard. Our new streaming service gives subscribers a simple, convenient way to watch live TV anytime, on any device, ensuring that sports fans never miss important matches, fights and games on some of the most popular channels available," said Shane Cannon, CEO at Vidgo. 

LiveU’s wireless video encoder, Solo, is being used by Isha Foundation – a non-profit, public service organization founded by Sadhguru – to connect with millions of well-wishers and volunteers in India and around the world. The Foundation uses Solo to stream live events, notably the night-long Mahashivaratri festival at Isha Yoga Center – which is watched by around 50 million viewers – and the Cauvery Calling and Rally for Rivers projects to revitalize India’s depleting rivers.

Rally for Rivers was launched by Sadhguru in September 2017 when he personally drove over 9300 kms in 30 days to raise awareness about the dire situation of Indian rivers. Today it is the world’s largest ecological movement, supported by over 162 million people, and is a major force in shaping river revitalization policy in national governments and world bodies such as the United Nations. Cauvery Calling is an on-ground implementation of Rally for Rivers, to revitalize river Cauvery, the lifeline for 84 million people in southern India.

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.

TVU Networks, the global technology and innovation leader in live IP video solutions, announced that Spanish public broadcaster RTVE chose TVU equipment to follow the 2019 Rally of Morocco. RTVE’s coverage was a unique blend of action captured at close range with a smartphone running TVU Anywhere and more static moments shot using a standard camera setup with TVU One.

The Rally of Morocco is the most renowned rally in the country, bringing in the best racers every year. To provide viewers with an engaging live broadcast, RTVE sought a set of solutions whose versatility could match the liveliness of the rally.

RTVE found the answer in TVU Anywhere, the powerful application that turns mobile smart devices into HEVC transmitters with IS+ transmission algorithm. The Spanish broadcaster paired TVU Anywhere with the ultra-compact TVU Nano Router, which helped to ensure smooth, interruption-free transmissions by providing up to 200Mbps of secure, high-speed Internet by combining data from three different SIM providers. 

TVU One, the mobile live video transmitter with HEVC encoding, was also on standby for the event, deployed when RTVE needed to switch to a higher resolution transmission with ultra-low, sub-second latency. The combination of these TVU products helped RTVE effectively capture the fast-paced action of the 2019 Rally of Morocco, and the live broadcast was successfully aired to RTVE’s flagship website and TV channel.

Mediaproxy, the leading provider of software-based IP broadcast solutions, has appointed Bright Installation Oy as its representative in Finland. The distribution and integration company will initially focus on the Australian manufacturer's compliance and monitoring systems, including the LogServer IP logger, monitor and analyzer.

Bright Installation is a standalone company within Bright Group, a rental, installation and distribution company serving the live performance, entertainment and event markets. Bright has its headquarters in Vantaa, a city in the greater metropolitan area surrounding the Finnish capital of Helsinki, and offices in the regional cities of Tampere and Turku. It also runs subsidiaries in Sweden and Norway.

Verizon Media has announced that Eros Now, a premier South Asian OTT entertainment platform, is using the Verizon Media Platform to meet global consumer demand for high quality streaming of Indian cinema.

India is home to Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry with an annual output of almost 2,000 films. Global demand for Bollywood content is growing rapidly and Eros Now has attracted over 177 million users to its service by housing over 12,000 movie titles, TV shows, Eros Now Originals, and short-format content – Eros Now Quickie. In order to retain its market leading position in India and also futureproof its ability to penetrate additional markets, Eros Now chose to migrate from its technology-dense streaming stack to a fully managed streaming service.

“As we continue our mission of bringing Bollywood content to a global audience, it’s crucial that we invest in cutting edge technologies to maintain high quality online experiences for the millions of users accessing our service from a range of devices and locations. Verizon Media’s Platform is renowned for its unparalleled streaming capabilities and high performance network, which will play an important role in helping us deliver an unrivalled user experience to our customers around the world,” said Ali Hussein, CEO, Eros Now.

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.

24i, the industry-leading, global video experience company, today announced that it has created, and launched a new suite of applications and Subscription Video-On-Demand (VOD) services for US-based video streaming service BroadwayHD.

The premier streaming service for live theatre BroadwayHD is available online at broadwayhd.com, and via a dedicated app on iOS,Android, Apple TV, Amazon Firestick and Roku.

Included among the recent hit productions released on the service are 42nd Street and Kinky Boots, both filmed on the West End by the BroadwayHD team, along with other recent and iconic stage shows such as Cats, King and I, and An American in Paris.

“We’re committed to providing the very best Broadway streaming experience to our growing global fanbase,“ said Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley, co-founders and co-owners, BroadwayHD. “We’re extremely pleased with the OTT solution provided by 24i, which has enabled us to launch our next-generation video service across multiple platforms and devices, introduce new business models and refresh and enrich our user experience. The high performance of this new platform enables us to concentrate on the quality of our content and growing the global audience for BroadwayHD.”

24i has worked in partnership with the subscriber retention management company Cleeng to deliver BroadwayHD a robust end-to-end OTT video solution that accelerates growth by simplifying the management, marketing, and monetization of its content while providing subscribers with a rich, personalized and easy to navigate experience on any device.

Sony has announced that its Simple Live Streaming service, a new proposition for users to streamline the process of acquiring live content, is now available (as of 12th December 2019). The additional workflow flexibility for its palm-sized 4K HDR professional camcorders, the HXR-NX80 and PXW-Z90, can be accessed via a free firmware upgrade to enable content creators to shoot wherever and however they want. 

With Wi-Fi connectivity, Simple Live Streaming enables high quality live streaming to major video sharing websites and social media platforms such as Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook with a single camcorder. Offering simple operation, it further enhances the remote delivery of content quickly without compromising on image quality. 

Norbert Paquet, Head of Product Management for Sony Professional Solutions comments: “The introduction of Simple Live Streaming for the HXR-NX80 and PXW-Z90 streamlines the overall workflow, from shooting to live distribution. Equipped with Simple Live Streaming, the camcorders will have online sharing features, further empowering content creators to concentrate on what they do best – storytelling on the go.” 

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."

Magewell will launch a powerful new model in its Eco Capture family of ultra-compact, power-efficient, M.2 video capture cards at the upcoming ISE 2020 exhibition in Amsterdam. The high-performance Eco Capture SDI 4K Plus M.2 captures one channel of 4K video up to 4096x2160 at full 60 frames per second over a single-link, 12G-SDI interface. The new card will make its global debut in stand 8-G475 at the event, taking place February 11-14, 2020.

Ideal for use in small and embedded systems where full-sized PCIe slots are not available, the cost-effective Eco Capture family offers systems integrators and OEM developers a robust capture solution with low power consumption for space-constrained applications. The low-latency Eco Capture devices feature a high-speed PCIe 2.0 bus interface with an M.2 connector and measure just 22x80mm (0.87x3.15in), matching the M.2 2280 size specification.

The new 4K 12G-SDI model joins four existing Eco Capture M.2 configurations: a single-channel model that captures 4K video at 30fps via an HDMI interface; dual-channel models that capture HD and 2K video over HDMI or SDI; and a quad-channel HD/2K model with SDI inputs. All five Eco Capture products also support up to eight channels of embedded audio per input.

Edgeware & ENENSYS Technologies ('ENENSYS') announced today that the two companies are forming a technological and global sales alliance. Edgeware, the leading provider of content preparation, unicast CDN and streaming solutions for broadband operators, and ENENSYS, the leading provider of Multicast ABR and LTE Broadcast media streaming solutions to network operators, will cooperate on key opportunities which leverage the strengths of each in their respective markets.

Edgeware has deployed over 200 private unicast CDNs globally and continues to innovate in the area of internet TV delivery, which requires unicast (one to one) streaming technology. ENENSYS has been a leader in the deployment of 4G/5G Broadcast and OTT Multicast solutions for mobile operators globally, leveraging the multicast capabilities of their private networks. Together, the two companies can offer a truly unique media delivery portfolio – to both the broadband fixed line and mobile operator markets.

Customers interested in knowing more about the integrated solutions now available thanks to this new Edgeware-ENENSYS collaboration are invited to contact their local sales representative, or submit a request via https://www.enensys.com/contact/ or https://www.edgeware.tv/contact/

Blackmagic Design today announced that Madrid based post house, Pigmento Color Grading, has switched to DaVinci Resolve Studio as part of a facility upgrade for HDR color correction and IMF format delivery.

Founded by Fernando Martinez and Pepe Abellàn, colorists with more than 20 years of audiovisual finishing experience, Pigmento has rapidly formed a reputation for delivering a boutique, tailored service to both broadcasters and OTT clients throughout Europe.

The team’s credits include episodic features such as The Pier, Locked Up and Emmy Award winning Money Heist, which has gone on to be a global success.

Spurred by increasing client demand for Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and IMF ready workflows, DaVinci Resolve Studio has now been installed as the primary online, grading and mastering solution within Pigmento’s two state of the art grading suites and two additional support workstations for conform, VFX pulls and deliveries.

Featuring Intel’s Dual Xeon SuperMicro processors paired with NVIDIA Tesla K80 and RTX2080ti graphics cards respectively, the grading suites feature Sony BVM-HX310 and Dolby PRM 4220 reference monitors and DaVinci Resolve Mini Panels for control. Underpinning the setup is 180TB of shared storage, with a 600TB NAS for backup.

Elite badminton players from around the world congregate each year to compete in the Malaysia Open, an important stop on the circuit of tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). Fans unable to make it to Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil this year were kept apprised of the latest updates via high-quality YouTube live streams produced by Macking Domain. Over the course of the six-day tournament, more than 12 hours of match footage across four courts were streamed to the Malaysia Open YouTube channel. Macking Domain relied on a host of technology to deliver the action, including four AJA HELO H.264 recording and streaming devices.

Given a straightforward set of video delivery requirements by its client, Macking Domain set out to establish a workflow built on AJA’s HELO. “We needed to deliver 1080/60p video with audio from each of the four courts and get live scoreboard content from each court integrated into the feed, which is why AJA’s HELO made so much sense,” shared Yoke Tee Tan, General Manager, Macking Domain. “It’s an affordable device that makes it incredibly easy to bring audiences a very high-quality viewing experience.”

Four Sony cameras, one on each court, were connected to a Newtek VMC1 digital media production system and captured live match footage. Courtside laptops housing scoreboard feeds were then encoded to NDI, and audio was embedded from each court using AJA Mini-Converters. Embedded audio signals came in as an NDI stereo channel via a network device interface converter and were split into two separate mono channels on a TriCaster video production system. The eight mono channels were routed to the corresponding scoreboard and linked with the associated court stream using 1 M/E; that signal was then routed to each SDI output on the VMC1. All four SDI outputs from the VMC1 were connected to four AJA HELO units for live streaming straight to YouTube; footage was simultaneously recorded to SD cards in HD using the HELOs.

Frost Cutlery in Chattanooga, Tenn., sells knives, swords, kitchen cutlery and other collectibles through its program, Cutlery Corner Network, producing 16 hours of original programming each week on its Broadcast Pix™ integrated production system. The show is streamed in HD at 720p to its growing online audience watching via Amazon, Hulu, and YouTube.

“It’s the workhorse of what we’re doing here,” said Tim Colvard, director of broadcast operations. “The Broadcast Pix switcher has made what we put online better than anything we’ve done in the past. It outperforms the other choices, and the technology performs perfectly. We don’t need as many supporting personnel because we know the Broadcast Pix system has a comprehensive toolset and is totally reliable.”