Posted by Derrick on July 30, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 
ViewCast Corporation, a developer of industry-leading solutions for the transformation, management and delivery of digital media over enterprise, broadband, and mobile networks, announced that venerable book and digital content publisher HarperCollins has selected advanced streaming media solutions from ViewCast and Adobe Systems Incorporated to power the company’s live streaming and video on demand (VOD) media programming. With ViewCast Niagara streaming media encoders and Adobe Flash Media Server software at the heart of HarperCollins’ new digital conference center, the company is equipped with a feature-rich, easy to use streaming media platform for real-time and pre-recorded corporate communication and events.
Constructed at HarperCollins’ corporate headquarters in New York, the company’s new digital conference center was designed to facilitate live and on-demand broadcasting of executive addresses, guest speaker presentations, company meetings and corporate training programs to company employees. To ensure optimal streaming performance, reliability and manageability, HarperCollins implemented ViewCast Niagara streaming media encoders – including the Niagara 2120 and a Niagara GoStream SURF – networked to two servers running Adobe Flash Media Server software.
“HarperCollins is at the forefront of leveraging online video to improve business communications and collaboration between their employees and stakeholders across the enterprise,” said Scott Wellwood, director of business development for Rich Media at Adobe. “It’s exciting to see the combination of the Adobe Flash Platform and ViewCast Niagara encoders, bringing cutting-edge technology that meets critical business needs. With the leading Web design and development platform, Adobe helps partners create expressive applications, content, and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices, and reaches more than 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops in the Enterprise.”
“HarperCollins’ innovative implementation of ViewCast Niagara encoders and Adobe Flash Media Server underscores the value and operational agility that streaming media can bring to any business, and reaffirms the strength of ViewCast’s technology integration with the Adobe Flash Platform,” said ViewCast president and CEO Dave Stoner. “For corporate communication applications, emails and memos can never match the immediacy and impact enabled via online video streaming. Even for a centuries-old company born of the printing press, digital media has the power to transform the scope and effectiveness of key business initiatives.”
“With ViewCast, we were assured proven, professional-grade streaming media systems that were easy to deploy and intuitive to use, complemented with excellent service and support,” said Steve Leiterstein, Senior Director, Desktop Services, HarperCollins. “The Adobe Flash Platform provides a rich, bandwidth-optimized viewing experience across all of our supported operating systems.”
Tags: Adobe Flash Media Server, encoders, Live Streaming, mobile, Niagara, Niagara 2120, Niagara GoStream SURF, online video streaming, streaming media encoders, streaming media solutions, streaming media systems, Video, video on demand, ViewCast, ViewCast Niagara
Posted by Derrick on June 12, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Inlet Technologies, the leader in innovative solutions for digital media preparation, announced today that Qumu, Inc., a proven innovator in streaming media solutions for the enterprise, has integrated control and management of Inlet’s SpinnakerTM into Qumu’s Video Control Center 5.3. As a result, video webcast producers and IT departments can now control Spinnaker real-time video streaming appliances directly from the Qumu Video Control Center.
The Qumu Video Control Center (VCC) 5.3 is the most recent upgrade to its comprehensive enterprise video management solution. The Video Control Center simplifies the enterprise video webcast process, and centralizes content creation, management and distribution. The central control enables organizations to produce and deliver scalable live events, video on-demand (VOD), and control for all video applications, content and resources. VCC 5.3 integrates industry-leading enhancements, including encoders, editing tools, streaming servers, Content Delivery Networks, portals, and video conferencing systems.
Qumu chose Inlet Technologies’ Spinnaker to give organizations greater flexibility and more options for real-time programming. Spinnaker is Inlet Technologies’ family of award-winning streaming appliances for live video and audio delivery applications, and provides exceptional quality and professional, reliable results in an affordable, simple solution. Spinnaker provides multiple formats in one box, and can prepare content for delivery to a wide audience through the latest platforms, devices, and screens. In addition to standard formats, Spinnaker has built-in support for adaptive bitrate streaming, including iPhoneTM and iPadTM streaming, Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming, and Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming. Spinnaker also supports streaming to a wide range of feature phones and smartphones.
“According to industry researchers, Gartner and IDC, Fortune 1000 organizations want to expand their use and delivery of streaming video throughout their organizations, in order to continue to reduce costs, engage audiences and increase revenues. These organizations demand cutting-edge technology that will allow them to reliably and seamlessly stream live events” said Scott Safe, Qumu, Inc. vice president of product strategy and marketing. “Now the Qumu Video Control Center with Inlet Spinnaker real-time appliances gives enterprise webcast producers the power to effortlessly control and deliver video through multiple platforms across the enterprise or around the world.”
“Inlet Technologies is pleased to work with Qumu to give enterprises the ability to easily stream professional quality live events,” said Don Bossi, CEO, Inlet Technologies. “Together, Inlet and Qumu can provide flexibility and reliability to companies looking to create compelling real-time content.”
Tags: encoders, Inlet Technologies, Live Streaming, media, qumu, Real-time, solutions, streaming, Streaming Servers, Video, video on demand, video streaming, webcast
Posted by Derrick on May 9, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
RealNetworks, Inc., the digital entertainment services company, released a new version of its Helix Media Delivery Platform with advancements that enable organizations to stream live and on-demand content in any format to any device.
Real’s Helix Platform provides the tools to create, deliver, monitor, monetize, organize and play digital media. The latest update includes support for Flash, MP4/H.264, Silverlight, Windows Media and QuickTime on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Symbian devices, creating a truly universal platform.
“Real’s Helix Platform sets the industry standard, providing consumers with the highest quality digital media experience,” said Kari “Kaila” Kailamaki, vice president for Helix, RealNetworks. “Our latest update makes Helix Platform the most reliable, universal and cost-effective solution for any media and any playback environment across all devices, including PCs, mobile phones and internet-connected TVs.”
The Helix Platform’s advancements include:
• Simultaneous content delivery from a single media source for iPhone, iPad, Flash Player, Silverlight, H.264 and RealVideo—simplifying video distribution for content owners
• A comprehensive set of tools that helps content owners monetize and control access to content, including enhanced client control, external authorization and streaming session logging, and management
• The ability to upload, tag, search and discover digital media quickly, particularly relevant in the education market
• Encoding into standard MP4/H.264 for maximum audience reach without requiring separate encoders to reach devices like the iPhone and iPad
• Support for rapidly building and deploying a compelling, customized mobile video viewing experience on mobile handsets supporting over 900 devices including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia with the new Helix Rich Media Client.
Tags: content, delivery, encoders, encoding, handsets, Helix, live, media, mobile, MP4/H.264, on-demand, phones, platform, RealNetworks, stream, Video
Posted by Derrick on February 8, 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 — and Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) announced that the Dutch public broadcaster has selected Digital Rapids’ StreamZ encoding systems to power live and on-demand Internet and mobile coverage of the 2010 Olympic Games for audiences in the Netherlands. The 2010 Olympic Games will be held February 12-28 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Part of Netherlands public broadcasting system Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), NOS is a market leader in the field of news and sports coverage on television, radio, the Internet and mobile devices. NOS will supplement their television coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Games with up to eight simultaneous live streams on the Web and extensive mobile content. The StreamZ systems will encode source video feeds into Web-friendly streams for viewing through an interactive experience powered by Microsoft(r) Silverlight(r) technology, and into multiple formats for mobile viewing. The encoded live streams will also be archived for viewers to watch on-demand.
“Our goal at NOS is to help strengthen the position of Dutch sports, by enabling the public to follow the many sports that play an important role in our society across all possible digital media platforms,” said Roeland Stekelenburg, Head of New Media at NOS. “During the 2008 Olympic Games, the ratio of streams viewed on our Website relative to the size of our country’s population was one of the highest in the world. Digital Rapids StreamZ encoders allow us to provide the quality and reliability we need for coverage of an event of this significance.”
“We’re thrilled that NOS has again chosen our award-winning encoding systems for their online Olympic Games coverage,” said Brick Eksten, President of Digital Rapids. “Audience expectations for the breadth, depth and quality of online sports coverage are higher than ever, and StreamZ encoding solutions are ideal for enabling superior Web-based experiences surpassing these expectations.”
StreamZ is the industry’s most versatile encoding solution, delivering multi-format video capture, encoding, transcoding and live streaming in a powerful turnkey configuration that integrates easily into any professional media environment. Combining the quality and performance advantages of hardware-based preprocessing with a format-flexible and feature-rich software application, StreamZ seamlessly supports live and on-demand multi-platform distribution opportunities with real-time, simultaneous encoding to multiple output formats.
Tags: content, devices, Digital Rapids, encode, encoders, encoding, formats, live, mobile, multiple, on-demand, output, Real-time, Silverlight, streams, StreamZ, Systems, transcoding, Video
Posted by Derrick on September 8, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression |
The Frisco Fire Department (FFD) in Texas is using state-of-the-art Streambox video technology to better manage emergency operations and effectively deploy resources. With Streambox ACT-L3 video transport systems deployed onboard its emergency response vehicles, the fire department is able to transmit live video from a fire or other incident back to the City of Frisco’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The video provides the EOC with a comprehensive view of unfolding emergencies.
Serving a rapidly growing city of 102,000 north of Dallas, the FFD previously relied solely upon radio transmissions from firefighters at the scene to understand the specifics of an incident. Then a couple of years ago, employees from a local TV station suggested FFD look into streaming video as a tool to gaining better intelligence about developing emergencies. FFD quickly realized Streambox would be an invaluable tool for providing a bird’s eye view of emergencies, and for helping multiple city departments coordinate resources when a quick response is necessary. “Now, our EOC staff can proactively deliver the required response based on what they see, rather than having to wait for someone to describe the scene to them,” said FFD fire chief, Mack Borchardt. “Judging from our success with streaming video I believe the technology holds great potential for other fire departments across the country.
Currently, the FFD has equipped its special operations and hazardous materials (haz-mat) vehicles with mast-mounted cameras and Streambox SBT3-7100 systems, which encode the video for transmission over low data rate Verizon 3G wireless connections. Streambox decoders play out the video, including thermal and infrared imaging, to command at the scene and back to the central fire station’s EOC.
The Streambox solution is particularly valuable for incidents which require a coordinated response from multiple city departments. In a recent example, a natural gas line ruptured near a main thoroughfare creating a hazard for traffic and the surrounding area. With a view of the scene from the hazardous materials vehicle, the EOC was able to see the full extent of the hazard and quickly coordinate a response with police and traffic control personnel. Subsequently, rush-hour traffic was safely and efficiently rerouted. Being able to view live video from accidents, fires, and other emergencies provides an additional perspective which significantly impacts the ability to deploy the necessary resources and coordinate potential evacuation plans.
With the initial success of the Streambox technology on the Special Operations and haz-mat trucks, the FFD plans to deploy more encoders/decoders on a new command vehicle that will arrive at the department in August. The new truck will provide an on-site command center and will be capable of streaming video simultaneously to the EOC and to either the haz-mat or special operations trucks.
“It was crucial for us to deploy a reliable and easy-to-use streaming solution so our firefighters can turn their full attention to the emergency at hand,” said Paul Siebert, assistant chief of the FFD. “With Streambox we are able to get set up and start transmitting video in a matter of minutes – and every minute counts in an emergency.”
“The Frisco Fire Department’s use of Streambox video technology is a great example of the value our solutions bring to emergency operations,” said Bob Hildeman, chairman and CEO of Streambox. “It clearly demonstrates the reliability and performance of our products and solutions over low cost, low data rate IP network connections.
