AMSTERDAM, July 18, 2016—Media Excel, leader in multi screen encoding/​transcoding solutions, has joined forces with Unified Streaming, a leading provider of cross-platform video streaming technologies, to offer customers a next-generation solution for content delivery based on HEVC. The collaboration delivers substantially enhanced experience for the audience and major OPEX savings for the operator.

HEVC/H.265 was developed with the goal of providing twice the compression efficiency of the previous standard, AVC/H.264. The advantages of improved compression efficiency are twofold: at an identical level of visual quality, HEVC enables video to be compressed at about half the size (or bit rate) of AVC, or when compressed at the same size or bit rate as AVC, HEVC delivers significantly better visual quality. This enables delivery of enhanced services, such as 4K/UHD and 360/VR, over existing network infrastructure.

Media Excel and Unified Streaming offer a joint solution based on existing infrastructure and proven workflows. With the addition of Live HEVC to Media Excel’s HERO fragmented mp4 output, the Unified Origin now manages Live HEVC ingest similarly to AVC in terms of archiving, DVR and DRM for multiple output formats simultaneously. HLS as well as MPEG-DASH can be streamed Live using HEVC and AVC, enabling a hybrid workflow for new and legacy receivers. After all, the extreme majority of consumer electronic devices have native support for HEVC playback and their application software can be updated remotely.

The applications of this offering are countless, however live sports streaming appears to be the most prominent use case, as both organizations have a substantial market share in this segment. By far, live sports represent the most popular and profitable content worldwide for multi screen video services. The large volume of viewers, along with their elevated expectations in terms of video quality and quality of experience, results in extremely high OPEX costs for operators. By switching to HEVC, operators can leverage their current investment in infrastructure (streaming, DVR, DRM, ad-insertion, playback) and cut their bandwidth/​CDN costs in half, or utilize the savings to enhance the quality of experience through higher video resolution (such as UltraHD) or enhanced services (such as 360/VR). Further, the enhanced user experience, especially with live sports, is easily monetized through subscription premiums and ad sales.

“It’s great to work with such a reliable partner, who shares the same perspective on how to offer solutions which are fully in-line with customer and consumer demand”, says Simon Westbroek, VP Global Sales at Unified Streaming. ​“We are always pleased to work with our ecosystem partners and enable innovative workflows for our mutual customers, while maintaining a standards-compliant and best-of-breed approach to our offerings”, says Nikos Kyriopoulos, Product Director of Media Excel.

About Unified Streaming

Unified Streaming is dedicated to helping companies create and execute smart video streaming technologies. Its products are in operation around the world, with customers ranging from live news broadcasters and major TV networks to service providers and technology partners.

Time and again, Unified Origin has proven to offer stable, scalable high-performing solution that fits into existing webservers, such as Apache, IIS, Lighttpd and Nginx. It provides streaming from one encode simultaneously to multiple devices in combination with various DRM technologies. This flexibility means customers get greater return on existing investments, reduce delivery costs and boost time to market.

About Media Excel

Media Excel is the leading supplier of reliable software solutions for real-time multiscreen video delivery. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company has been the industry leader in the development of real-time video processing software to distribute video over IP networks. Solutions from Media Excel provide the reliability, scalability and performance required to deliver high quality video via appliance and cloud deployment models. Powering more than 300 million multi screen subscribers worldwide, and with the #1 market share in multi screen delivery for wireless carriers, Media Excel assists Pay TV operators, content providers, broadcasters and telcos worldwide.

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