ThePlatform has a new cloud-based service for operators to manage video and metadata files meant for publication on subscriber set-top boxes and IP-connected devices.
Co-CEO of thePlatform Mary Roberts told CED the company has been developing the service for just over four months. The Unified Ingest Service is available as a standalone service, but can also be obtained as part of thePlatform’s mpx system, which is a video content management system for video publishing.
The Unified Ingest Service allows operators to integrate siloed systems of legacy ingest systems. It does this by managing direct transmission feeds from satellites, traditional video pumps, operator-owned content delivery networks, and external content delivery networks for online video sources. The service also provides centralized back-end resource to facilitate the packaging and selling of video services.
Pay-TV providers can transition to a secure cloud-based system with the ingest service, and centralize their video and metadata intake. For example, the company’s advanced workflows can be used by operators in their transcoding farms and tailor uploads, and to use existing feeds to ingest video and metadata, set up Watch Folders to automatically monitor ingested files, and to onboard video libraries.
“Right now, the act of collecting video and metadata is a real mess. We’ve invested in our Unified Ingest System to help operators tackle this issue and create a new foundation for innovation. In fact, we already provide this kind of functionality to support more than 20 million pay TV subscribers across STBs and other devices. So, we decided to productize it, and make it generally available to the broader cable, telco, and satellite TV provider community, starting today,” said Roberts.
