BETHPAGE, NY—RadiantGrid Technologies, developer of leading-edge transcoding, transformation, and new media automation service platforms, is providing Rainbow Network Communications with a consolidated solution to handle transcoding for the new cable network, MSG Varsity. In addition, Rainbow Network Communications will be using RadiantGrid to support transcoding of proxies and export material from its vast vault of SD content and ever growing vault of HD content.
MSG Varsity is a multi-platform suite of services comprised of: a 24/7 television network, a comprehensive online destination, and a groundbreaking interactive service, all dedicated to high school sports, academics and activities happening throughout the tri-state area. As part of the launch of MSG Varsity, Rainbow Network Communications was looking for a means to transcode content for interactive television, online distribution, and video on demand. RadiantGrid was able to provide a consolidated solution, consisting of the company’s Multiplatform Transcoding and Dolby E Decoding features as well as its Program Assembly Module, for the variety of content conversions for the network.
For MSG Varsity, Rainbow Network Communications will be feeding broadcast source material into the RadiantGrid Platform which will be converted to multiple video formats while concurrently converting Dolby E audio to AC-3 format. In addition, Rainbow Network Communications will be using RadiantGrid’s Program Assembly module to concatenate the program segments together in an automated fashion. In Program Assembly, assets are assembled end-to-end with the audio and video tracks stitched together.
“Rainbow Network Communications is the central facilitation point for programming origination and distribution so we were seeking a solution that would help us achieve true integration and efficiency,” says Steven Pontillo, P.E., senior Vice President, Broadcasting, Information Systems and Technology at Rainbow. “With the RadiantGrid Platform, we are able to run multiple processes under one platform as opposed to having some of the process done offline or in a linear mode. This is helping to streamline our broadcast processes for MSG Varsity, and also helps to archive all of Rainbow Media’s HD and SD content.”
Under the RadiantGrid Platform, users have the ability to concurrently transcode both audio and video source material more quickly than other transcoding products. RadiantGrid accepts many media archive essence formats and ingestion container formats, such as Avid DNxHD, Avid IMX50, MPEG-2 Long GOP, GXF and MXF Op-Atom and Op1a. From any of these container formats, RadiantGrid can deliver content to
broadband, mobile, cable, and broadcast formats and standards such as Microsoft Silverlight (VC-1), H.264, CableLabs 1.1 MPEG-2, QuickTime DVCPRO-HD, Flash On2 VP6, 3GPP and the Apple iPhone.
“With broadcast content being transmitted through multiple sources in multiple formats, as seen with Rainbow Network Communications, broadcasters require an efficient and effective means of converting and managing content,” says Kirk Marple, President, Chief Software Architect, RadiantGrid Technologies. “Through the customizable solutions offered by RadiantGrid, broadcasters can consolidate all their processes under one platform, providing a workflow that is truly nonlinear.”
Rainbow Network Communications will also be implementing the RadiantGrid Platform and its TrueGrid Transcoding, Dolby E decoding and Closed Captioning Management features to handle the transcoding of its SD and HD archives. Using the RadiantGrid TrueGrid technology, transcoding HD content is quicker and more efficient because source content can be transcoded in parallel across all available transcoding resources. This process distributes virtual slices of the source content across all available resources and once these slices have been transcoded, they are reassembled to generate the final transcoded file. The source HD content from Rainbow Network Communications is being converted from GXF to H.264. RadiantGrid’s Closed Captioning Management module will be handling extraction of closed captioning from media sources and insertion of closed captioning back into the transcoded output file.
