Posted by Derrick on July 27, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 
Mirror Image Internet, a leading provider of content delivery solutions, announced expanded streaming capabilities with partner, Wowza Media Systems, boosting per-server performance to 10 Gbps for high capacity video streaming. Since the companies began working together in 2009, the partnership has enabled organizations to take advantage of video streaming to the latest and most popular devices and platforms including Apple iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, with hundreds of customers streaming content on Mirror Image’s network through Wowza servers.
Video streaming, on the Web and to mobile devices, has quickly become one of the leading content strategies, with growth only expected to continue. According to results of Cisco’s annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast, global Internet video traffic will surge past P2P traffic by the end of this year, emerging as the Internet’s largest growth driver. By 2014 Cisco anticipates the Internet video traffic will equate to two years of video every second. Given these numbers, content providers and organizations need more delivery support than ever, at minimal infrastructure cost. Mirror Image and Wowza offer a compelling range of high-capacity services to its customers, including streaming video, without requiring them to encode content in multiple formats for each destination client.
“Building on our core content delivery capabilities — streaming and media management — working with Wowza over the last year has further set us apart from our competition in so many ways,” said James G. Hart, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mirror Image Internet. “Whether our customers are streaming to mobile devices, incorporating new platforms and media formats into their content delivery strategy, or they are on a tight budget, Wowza has allowed us to deliver a unique streaming service to our customers each and every time.”
Over the last year, Mirror Image has continued to expand its client base by offering CDN services that meet the increasingly bandwidth-heavy requirements of organizations today. This includes focusing on mobile video streaming and expanding the capabilities of its Media Management Platform (MMP).
Mirror Image and the Wowza Media Server 2 software provide high-performance content delivery to a growing roster of customers including Streamquik, WBRC-TV, Vingo.tv, Internet Video Archive among many others. Additionally, the Wowza Media Server 2’s unified capability that enables streaming to Adobe Flash, iPhone/iPad, Microsoft Silverlight and other clients from a single encode continues to distinguish Mirror Image from other CDN providers.
“Mirror Image’s ability to stay nimble and respond to customer needs quickly, including providing scalable CDN services for a growing number of devices and platforms has made the company a natural fit for our server software,” said David Stubenvoll, CEO and Co-founder, Wowza Media Systems. “Wowza is committed to providing customers with options and partnering with Mirror Image has allowed us to extend those options to a new crop of customers.”
The Mirror Image global network provides a wide range of platforms including Wowza Media, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Windows Media/Silverlight, Apple QuickTime, RealNetworks RealVideo and others to meet the growing demands of the company’s client base.
Posted by Derrick on July 11, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Wowza Media Systems, the media server company, announced that GS Neotek, one of the largest Content Delivery Networks (CDN) in South Korea and a Wowza Streaming Partner for more than a year, has upgraded to the Wowza Media Server 2 software. The upgrade has made an immediate impact for SBS (Seoul Broadcasting Systems), a GS Neotek customer that has successfully streamed the World Cup games to mobile customers on Apple iPhone/iPad and Android devices.
With Wowza Media Server 2, GS Neotek now has a unified delivery platform for live and on-demand video and audio streaming services encompassing a multitude of player clients and devices, including Flash, Silverlight, Android, and iPhone/iPad devices. Wowza’s industry-leading 10 Gbps per-server performance further enables GS Neotek to reduce its costs through lower media server and operating system licensing fees, and by eliminating the need for multiple client-specific media servers.
“GS Neotek has long been recognized as the best partner for delivering high-quality online video in South Korea and today we expand our vision,” said Nogi Yoon, manager of GS Neotek. “We chose Wowza Media Server 2 because it is easy to deploy, extremely cost-effective, and supports a diverse variety of players, platforms and devices. Wowza is the only solution we have encountered that offers high performance and an agile architecture that can evolve with the changing media delivery landscape. The result is that our customers can deliver reliable video to consumers on three screens — living room, mobile and desktop.”
Many companies in the media and e-learning markets, including such industry heavyweights as Naver, Ongamenet and Seoul Broadcasting Systems (SBS), rely on the GS Neotek-Wowza infrastructure for delivery of their content to multiple devices.
“Wowza’s partnership with GS Neotek illustrates our joint commitment to innovation and to providing customers with high-quality, enjoyable video streaming experience no matter the player or device platform they use,” said Dave Stubenvoll, CEO and co-founder, Wowza Media Systems. “We are very excited to expand our partnership with GS Neotek to further boost Wowza’s already formidable presence in the burgeoning South Korean market.”
As the industry’s first truly unified media server, Wowza Media Server 2 provides a cohesive software platform capable of simultaneously delivering video from a single encoded source to a multitude of clients and devices, including Flash, Silverlight, and QuickTime, IPTV set-top boxes, as well as the world’s leading video-friendly mobile devices including Android and Blackberry phones, as well as the Apple iPhone and iPad.
Tags: Apple iPhone, audio streaming, CDN, flash, iPad, media server, media servers, on-demand, online video, unified, Video, Wowza Media Server 2, Wowza Media Systems
Posted by Derrick on March 11, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Digital Rapids — the leading provider of tools and solutions for bringing television, film and web content to wider audiences – unveiled the new StreamZHD Live ABR encoder, the industry’s highest-performance Adaptive Bit Rate streaming system. The latest model in the StreamZ Live family, StreamZHD Live ABR encodes and streams live HD and SD content at unparalleled quality for delivery through the latest generation of adaptive streaming technologies.
StreamZHD Live ABR supports the Dynamic Streaming capabilities of Adobe® Flash Media Server®; adaptive HTTP streaming to Apple® iPhone® mobile devices, and Microsoft® Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming to Microsoft® Silverlight® powered viewing experiences. StreamZHD Live ABR is also easily extensible to support additional adaptive delivery technologies, such as Adobe’s upcoming HTTP Dynamic Streaming (announced as Project Zeri).
Adaptive bit rate streaming enables higher-quality viewing experiences with television-like continuity and reliability on the Web and mobile devices. StreamZHD Live ABR creates multiple output streams at varying bit rates and resolutions from the input source. As the content is delivered to each viewer, the chosen adaptive delivery technology automatically switches between these streams to deliver the best possible quality based on the viewer’s current network and local system conditions. The results are consistent, uninterrupted viewing experiences up to HD quality even under dramatically changing network connectivity and playback conditions.
Building on Digital Rapids’ long-standing ability to output multiple formats, resolutions and bit rates simultaneously in real time, StreamZHD Live ABR provides superior encoding performance for adaptive delivery. Combinations of up to seven HD and SD streams can be output simultaneously in real time from a single StreamZHD Live ABR unit. StreamZHD Live ABR can output streams up to full 1920×1080 at 30fps in the H.264 compression format — including simultaneous 1080p and 720p outputs — and up to 720p with VC-1 compression. Multiple StreamZHD Live ABR systems can be synchronized to encode the same source for adaptive streaming applications requiring a greater number of simultaneous streams. A single StreamZHD Live ABR unit can also create outputs for multiple platforms — such as the Web and iPhone — concurrently.
Adaptive bit rate technologies also minimize the initial viewing delay typical with earlier streaming methods, providing fast start-up times approaching the immediacy of traditional television. The historical approach of content providers offering streams in two or three tiered bit rates for the viewer to select between — often with poor results under changing conditions or if viewers over-estimate their capabilities — is also no longer necessary. Viewers simply start viewing from a single engagement point, with the adaptive technologies managing the bit rate dynamically.
StreamZHD Live ABR combines all of these benefits with the proven advantages of Digital Rapids’ StreamZ Live encoder family, forming the ideal adaptive streaming platform. Advanced video pre-processing features including motion adaptive de-interlacing with pixel-level analysis and video noise reduction deliver superior visual quality with the most efficient use of bandwidth in the compressed result. Video adjustments and graphic overlay enable refinement of incoming sources and the addition of branding to output streams. Multiple StreamZHD Live ABR encoders can be combined with the scalable Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager software for enterprise-class management, automation, scheduling, multi-channel monitoring and failover.
“Our live encoding and streaming solutions have long been regarded as the quality leaders, but even with the best encoding quality, the viewing experience can be constrained by delivery challenges such as varying network bandwidth. StreamZHD Live ABR combines our superior quality and robust, enterprise-class features with advanced delivery mechanisms to significantly improve the viewer experience,” said Darren Gallipeau, Product Manager at Digital Rapids. “Higher quality and consistent reliability lead to longer viewer engagement times, which in turn offer greater monetization opportunities to content owners. Meanwhile, the exceptional performance of StreamZHD Live ABR lowers the cost of encoding for adaptive streaming by producing all of the outputs within a single unit.”
The new StreamZHD Live ABR model is now shipping. Full adaptive streaming capabilities are also available in Digital Rapids’ versatile StreamZHD multi-format, live and on-demand studio encoders.
StreamZHD Live ABR and other Digital Rapids solutions will be showcased in booth number SL6010 at the 2010 NAB Show, April 12-15 in Las Vegas. For more information about Digital Rapids, please visit http://www.digital-rapids.com/.
Posted by Derrick on January 16, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Inlet Technologies, the leader in innovative solutions for digital media preparation, announced that AEG Digital Media has selected Inlet’s Spinnaker technology to power high-quality streaming of premium media and entertainment events from around the world.
Inlet’s Spinnaker family of live streaming solutions delivers broadcast-quality streams over the Internet to multiple screens and devices. With its built-in support for adaptive streaming protocols, Spinnaker generates high-quality streams that enhance online viewing of live action. Spinnaker creates a more interactive and personal online video experience for consumers, backed by exceptional video quality with DVR-like capabilities, multiple camera angles, embedded captions and URLs, and no stuttering, buffering, or other interruptions.With Spinnaker as a critical element of their technology infrastructure, AEG Digital Media has already facilitated and managed some of the largest online live events of the previous year, including: 2010 People’s Choice Awards; the first Hollywood Bowl show broadcast live on the Internet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” concert; Farm Aid 2009; Cirque Du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte’s One Drop Foundation Poetic Social Mission event, featuring a live stream from the International Space Station; MTV Latin VMAs; and Alicia Keys’ recent full-length concert on Google’s YouTube live music channel.
“The level of quality produced with Inlet’s Spinnaker supporting our technology backbone has helped accelerate our discussions with major broadcasters and premium content sites interested in replicating the same success and quality we’ve achieved with other events,” said John Petrocelli, vice president of business development and sales, AEG Digital Media.
“Our success working with AEG Digital Media provides a great opportunity to expand our expertise specifically in the entertainment-related market,” said Michael Barros, senior vice president of worldwide sales for Inlet Technologies. “The experts at AEG have been perfecting their digital processes for almost ten years now. The ease with which they were able to seamlessly integrate Spinnaker into their workflow is a testament to how simple and functional the product is to work with.
”With plans to deploy Spinnaker units to stream from the red carpet and behind the scenes at upcoming award shows and other events such as the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, as well as streaming content to other devices such as the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, AEG Digital Media is well-positioned to deliver the highest quality content the industry has seen in ten years of live streaming. “We look forward to continue working with Inlet to bring premium media and entertainment events to the global market while ensuring the best quality of experience for viewers,” said Petrocelli.
