Envivio launched a new media processor to provide protected video that is formatted for distribution to smartphones, tablets, connected TVs and PCs.
With media sources proliferating and all scattered, the issue for service providers is how to efficiently get content from where it is to where it’s going, and that makes it media processor week at the NAB show. In the past week, Arris, Azuki, Verivue, Harmonic and Civilution, with Digital Rapids, have all introduced systems or upgraded products that are in one way or another involved with the storing and playing out of media to different devices.
Envivio’s Halo Network Media Processor (NMP) works its 4Caster C4 multi-profile encoders and Envivio Genesis universal mezzanine format; the combination of products creates what Envivio says is a video headend and content packaging solution designed from the ground up for multi-screen TV services.
The Halo NMPs are designed to sit at the edge of a network and to package, encrypt and distribute video streams for a variety of consumer devices. Halo NMPs can be added as needed, supporting new devices without impacting the headend, video quality or bandwidth demands on the core network, Envivio says.
Envivio’s unified headend can play out video in a variety of resolutions and bit rates required by all types of screens, all in the company’s own Genesis format. This unified, broadcast, standards-based mezzanine format supports multiple streams simultaneously, reducing backbone bandwidth requirements for multi-screen services by 50 percent or more, the company claims, when compared with delivering separate formats for each device.
Adaptive bit rate streams are compatible with Apple iOS, Android 3.0, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Smooth Streaming.
This approach means that a service provider can rely on a single core content delivery backbone or satellite uplink to distribute Genesis-formatted content to Halo NMPs at the edge of the operator’s internal network. Envivio said its solution is compatible with existing broadcast infrastructure, monitoring equipment and workflows – it enhances current operations without altering them.
