Digital Rapids StreamZ Encoder Fuels Free Agent Fever for Miami HEAT

Posted by Derrick on August 17, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Digital Rapids announced that The HEAT Group, owners of the Miami HEAT National Basketball Association (NBA) team and operators of Miami’s AmericanAirlines Arena, are using Digital Rapids’ StreamZ encoding system to speed the production of high-quality live and on-demand video content for the HEAT.com website and internal production workflows. Most recently, StreamZ was used for live streaming of events leading up to and following the signings of high-profile free agent players Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh.

The Broadcast Services department at The HEAT Group produces live event coverage and pre-packaged content for all departments in the organization, including advertising, marketing, internal training, the HEAT.com website, and shows airing on NBA TV and regional television. The group also produces content such as half-time features that are used within live game broadcasts on SunSports.

Online video is a key focus for the production group, as the team leverages it to support the HEAT brand, engage existing fans and grow the team’s fan base globally. Content from the team’s in-arena HEATV broadcast, special features and more are encoded through StreamZ into the formats required for on-demand Web viewing. StreamZ is also used for live Web streaming of special events and announcements. The StreamZ system is also used in an automated workflow to transcode library footage provided by NBA Entertainment into The HEAT Group’s preferred editing format for subsequent production needs.

Finding their existing encoding solution slow and inefficient, The HEAT Group chose StreamZ for its exceptional performance, high quality and the versatility to meet their broad and growing digital media needs. StreamZ was supplied to The HEAT Group by reseller CIS Group.

“By enabling us to efficiently create high-quality material for HEAT.com with very fast turnaround, the Digital Rapids StreamZ system helps us engage and grow our fan base, and that has a direct impact on our revenues,” said Ed Filomia, Senior Director of Broadcast Services for The HEAT Group. “We’re able to get video content from the arena and events onto the website faster than ever before, while the versatility of the system lowers our equipment and operational costs by supporting our live and on-demand production needs in one platform.”

The importance of streaming video as an integral part of the team’s marketing strategy was underscored at the recent start of the NBA’s 2010 free agency period. As part of a campaign to encourage HEAT star Wade to re-sign with the team, HEAT mascot Burnie took up residence on an exterior ledge of the arena for a week. To fuel publicity and fan interest in the campaign, StreamZ was used to provide a live stream of Burnie’s exploits 24-hours per day through the HEAT.com website. The StreamZ system was also used for live streaming of the welcoming party and press conference marking the signings of Wade and his new superstar teammates James and Bosh.

Marvell Technology Integrates Sorenson Spark Video Decoder into Platform Solutions

Posted by Derrick on August 5, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Sorenson Media announced that the Sorenson Spark Software Developers Kit (SDK) has been licensed by Marvell Technology to incorporate the Sorenson Spark decoder in Marvell products. Sorenson Spark will be included in the company’s platform solutions designed to scale with set-top boxes, media players, e-readers, netbooks, smart phones, high-performance tablets and other advanced mobile devices.

Sorenson Spark is the industry’s most ubiquitous video codec and was the first codec used in Macromedia Flash, now Adobe Flash. The decoder exclusively enables the playback of hundreds of millions of videos on the Internet, including those on YouTube, the single largest online video destination today. The Sorenson Spark SDK allows developers to integrate the Sorenson Spark decoder into a wide array of programmable chipsets and semiconductors. The kit is designed to provide Sorenson Spark decoding on any platform, including custom silicon.

Marvell is a leading fabless semiconductor company with expertise in microprocessor architecture.   Marvell’s multiple platforms included networked Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, media players, mobile and wireless, and high volume storage solutions. These are used to power the complete value chain of mobile and wireless devices.

“Marvell is a technology leader, driving highly efficient and scalable platform solutions for consumers worldwide,” said Douglas Cebik, director of business development of Sorenson Media.  “Now, the company’s high performance mobile platforms will be able to play Internet video using the industry’s most common codec and consumers will enjoy more complete access to the full world of online video.”

GS Neotek CDN Scores with Wowza Media Server 2

Posted by Derrick on July 11, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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.

Sorenson 360 Enables Compuware Gomez to Deliver High-Quality Online Video Content

Posted by Derrick on July 1, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware, was looking for an online video platform (OVP) that could scale flexibly with its growing online video needs. The company selected Sorenson Media’s OVP, Sorenson 360, to quickly create and deliver high-quality online video content for its website and integrate seamlessly with WordPress.

Gomez’s industry-leading solutions for optimizing the performance, availability, and quality of web and mobile applications are used by more than 3,000 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises – including 12 of the top 20 most-visited U.S. Web sites.

“Many of the world’s leading companies rely on Gomez to help them increase revenue, decrease costs and build brand loyalty by optimizing the performance, availability and quality of their Web and mobile applications,” said Kirk Punches, vice president of sales and business development for Sorenson Media. “Gomez chose Sorenson 360 to address the company’s online video needs and meet all of its website’s online video challenges.”

Gomez required an OVP that provides control of the management and hosting for its archived files, and a more effective way to implement its own registration process. In addition to its Archived Webinar video content, Gomez wanted reliable solutions for the development and online delivery of its marketing videos, which incorporate both Flash animation and traditional video images.

“Sorenson’s scalable product enabled us to enter into online video gradually,” said Tarah Cammett, director of marketing for Gomez. “We received excellent quality and results from the Sorenson Squeeze client-side encoding solution, so we decided to evaluate Sorenson 360 online video platform to address our online video challenges.”

Customers can use the gold-standard Sorenson Squeeze client-side encoding application to easily compress and upload videos directly to Sorenson 360, ensuring maximum control and industry-best online video quality.

The flexibility and scalability of Sorenson 360’s features and pricing enabled Gomez to seamlessly transition through three successive stages of video deployment on its site. In the first, exploratory stage, Gomez added a few smaller videos to its site, which enabled the company to minimize expenses while evaluating the response and viewing patterns of site visitors.

Encouraged by brisk viewership during this first stage and Sorenson 360’s ease of use, the company upgraded its service to include more and larger video files to accommodate increasing numbers of viewers. The accelerating viewership and the seamless transition with Sorenson 360 emboldened the company to enter its third and current stage, with an increasing emphasis on customized videos and the incorporation of RTMP streaming. This final stage of heightened video content and quality has driven significant increases in video views and overall site traffic for Gomez.

Virgin Media Selects Brightcove Platform for Online Video

Posted by Derrick on February 26, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 2 Comments to Read

Brightcove Inc., the leading online video platform, announced an agreement with Virgin Media, the UK’s leading entertainment and communications company, to support short-form video content across Virginmedia.com. Virgin Media offers a range of online news, sports, music and entertainment content and will use the Brightcove platform to publish and distribute high quality, advertising-supported video across its website.

“We’re putting Virginmedia.com at the heart of our entertainment line-up with the recent launch of our music video on demand service and our new gaming site,” said Alex Green, executive director of TV and Online at Virgin Media. “Brightcove will help us deliver a fantastic video experience for all of our visitors as we bring more and more content online.”

Virginmedia.com is one of the UK’s most popular websites with around 11 million visitors a month. With Brightcove, Virgin Media has a single, integrated solution to meet its online video publishing and distribution needs. The Brightcove platform also enables visitors to the Virgin Media website to engage and interact with video content through advanced social sharing, ratings and other community-building features.

The first Virgin Media brand to roll out the Brightcove platform is Virgin Media Television’s LIVING, which recently launched Liv, the UK’s first online TV channel to deliver free, exclusive, and original short-form video content. Brightcove has also enabled LIVING to deliver its lifestyle-focused video content to a host of third party websites and social networks.

“Virgin Media has a strong reputation for delivering a truly integrated entertainment and communications experience for its millions of customers throughout the UK,” said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer. “We are proud that Virgin Media has chosen the Brightcove platform to support its ongoing efforts to provide viewers with unprecedented access to its vast library of high quality online video.”