At the 2014 IBC Harmonic announced its new Media Orchestration Solutions for manual and automated content delivery, particularly to support virtualized content delivery. The Polaris Advance playout automation system supports efficient play to air via tight integration with the company's Spectrum media server system. Imagine Communications (formerly Harris) was showing its software and hardware services for cloud based playout. In supporting broadcast workflows Avid announced it Avid AirSpeed 5500 to ingest and play out multiple media formats without having to invest in costly converters and offering support for Sony XAVC. Prime Focus was also showing cloud based storage and content management.
HEVC (H.265) demonstrations for UHD video were on display throughout the IBC. Among the demonstration BBright unveiled its 4RU real-time SLED-4K encoder product for broadcast, OTT and IPTV applications. Envivio announced their Nuage virtualized cloud-based software-as-a-service video solution supporting HEVC and other content. The product works in a private or public cloud. Another interesting development supporting consumer video reception was the UPnP Forum's UpnP Cloud architecture providing features focusing on delivering new technical capabilities for enhancing consumer video experiences.
Signiant announced that its cloud platform Media Shuttle and SkyDrop products were being used by Smoke and Mirrors to accelerate the movement of large media files for streamlined workflows. Media Shuttle is a hybrid SaaS file transfer service for moving large media files into and out of cloud storage. Media Shuttle provides a simple dropbox-like way to send and share large files. The company also announced that its services are available with Amazon Web Services.
Aspera debuted the latest Aspera On Demand Platform, built on their FASP 3.5 technology. This product allows content to move seamlessly between distributed cloud and on-premise storage with exceptional speed and controlled delivery. The product allows using cloud services to support collaborative workflows with large ultra-HD files as well as millions of small files. The company reports that their product works seamlessly with every major cloud storage provider.
The companies suite of services includes auto-scaling of on-line capacity, measurement of transfer performance, transport of live video and data streams over global Internet WANs in real-time and a file-based Aspera Drive that allows browsing, drag-and-drop transfers as well as sync and exchange of rich media content to desktop as well as mobile devices. The Aspera Orchestrator allows verification of incoming media and metadata formats against ADI and DPP standards for broadcast and file-based VoD distribution and post-production. Numerous companies at the IBC demonstrated streaming and file transfers using Aspera technology.
EVS, Aspera and Elemental demonstrated large scale high-resolution video streaming via the cloud for HD media and sporting event to connected devices using EVS's C-Cast technology for capturing video at live action sports production feeds from multiple camera angles. Elemental Cloud video processing ingests mezzanine formats, converting it into the various formats needed to support mobile viewing devices while high-quality high-resolution live content is delivered to regional broadcasters and streamed to global online viewers. For more information go to: http://asperasoft.com/world-cup-live-distribution-workflow/
Akamai's media delivery and network operator solutions and services demonstrated capabilities required for next generation content delivery networks (CDNs). The company offered high speed content uploads to its NetStorage product using Aspera Upload Acceleration for large high-resolution content transfers. The company demonstrated a virtual ISP in their booth with LCDN caching servers leveraging content origination and preparation services using its Akamai Intelligent Platform. The Akamai Media Client allows the Intelligent Platform to provide content delivery into homes and connected devices even at 4K resolution.