Here’s a noteworthy bit of tech news of interest to U.S.-based broadcasters from a London-based operation: It has created what it claims is the world’s first software exclusive uncompressed playout deployment — something of keen interest for those relying on IP delivery of video and audio.
After showcasing the product at IBC 2018 in Amsterdam in September, Red Bee Media is now offering it to a global audience.
It’s biggest selling point: there is no need for any dedicated infrastructure.
“With systems running on private cloud deployments across multiple data centers, Red Bee Media will be able to deliver unmatched quality and flexibility to Tier 1 public and commercial broadcasters,” it says.
Research and development has taken place over a period of two years, and the solution will go live with several customers during 2019.
“The broadcasting and media industry is steadily moving towards IP and software-centric environments for playout deployment,” the company says. “But, current solutions are also relying on either compressed video feeds or single task hardware that is costly to acquire and maintain and that can only provide flexibility with unused capacity available. To answer the need for flexibility, agility and cost reduction for Tier 1 broadcasters who need to maintain premium video quality with low latency, Red Bee Media has created a completely IP and Software Based Playout Deployment for uncompressed video streams.”
The platform eliminates the need for any special purpose hardware or additional infrastructure that corrects issues in the video feeds, it says.
“Going software only and enabling a consumption based commercial model has been a strict ambition for us,” notes David Travis, Chief Portfolio Officer for Video Services at Red Bee. “Previous IP centric playout deployments have relied on compressed video streams or bespoke hardware to make it work. This was not an option for either us or our customers. After dedicated R&D efforts we can now offer a solution with uncompressed video streams of the highest quality, combined with the flexible commercial models and agility that only an IP and Software based system can offer, all running on our newly deployed hybrid cloud.”
Red Bee Media’s OTT services include live transcoding of 233 channels for broadcasters and 119 standalone channels provided to 1.7 million subscribers. The company’s content discovery portfolio spans more than 10 million movies and program titles, covering over 25 languages, and includes an image database covering over 90 percent of all programming available across traditional TV, video on demand (VOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD). Red Bee Media also provides over 200,000 hours of captioning each year – more than 70,000 hours of which is live.
