NEVADA CITY, CA — Telestream (www.telestream.net) will be at NAB with a new version of its multi-format video encoding software. Episode 6.5 is scheduled for release later in Q2 and will feature support for closed captions, new formats, multi-bitrate encoding, and multi-track audio.
Preserving the integrity of original content while transferring it between incompatible systems is a constant challenge for post production professionals. Episode produces “true to the original” results for simple transcoding jobs as well as for more complex encoding jobs, such as standards conversion.
“With Episode 6.5, we concentrated on closed captioning support as well as adding the newer formats such as HEVC, VP9, and AS-11,” explains Barbara DeHart, VP of desktop business at Telestream. “Our continued goal is to give customers remarkable output quality in the most flexible and streamlined way possible. With versions starting just under $600, Episode is accessible anyone who is serious about video production”
Episode 6.5 enables caption insertion with encoding and pass-through options, and supports CEA-608 and CEA-708 captioning standards as well as MCC and SCC caption formats. With federal regulations mandating captioning, this will enable post production workflows to handle embedded captions easily.
Episode supports a wide range of formats, allowing users to repurpose media for Websites, mobile devices, television, archive, disk authoring and more. With version 6.5, Episode adds support for formats including HEVC, XAVC, VP9, and MXF AS-11.
Multi-bitrate streaming improves a viewer's experience by letting users deliver videos in the resolution and bit rate that best matches viewers’ connection speeds. With Version 6.5, users will be able to easily encode and create packages for Apple HLS (HTTP Live Streaming), Microsoft Smooth Streaming, and MPEG-DASH.
The upcoming release will add presets and filters to easily map multi-track audio channels. Users will be able to rearrange audio tracks, change speaker assignments, and change audio formats and sample rates.
And image sequences are now available directly from the Episode UI, which provides an easy way to manage thousands of frames for 3D animation and compositing for visual effects. Users can step through the sequence frame by frame with the highest possible quality. It’s also possible to add multiple files from different sequences for multiple encode tasks.
Available in three versions with incrementally increasing encoding speeds and format flexibility, Episode, Episode Pro, and Episode Engine are all supported on Mac and PC platforms. Because Episode’s transcode engine is completely multi-threaded, multiple jobs can be processed in parallel, using all available power from multi-core workstations.