Envivio is now offering its new Elite Compression for optimizing media playback on midrange mobile devices. An enhancement to its 4Caster C4 and M2 mobile TV encoders, it’s available to participants in Envivio’s mobile streaming trade up program at discounts of up to 35 percent for operators who replace their existing software encoders with the Envivio 4Caster C4 before May 31, 2009.
Elite Compression targets mass-market mobile devices that use a central processor to decode media content. While H.263 and MPEG-4 compression match the capabilities of older or entry-level mobile devices, they fail to make full use of modern midrange handsets, preventing subscribers from getting the most out of their handsets’ media playback. On the other hand, the more complex H.264 only works for premium handsets with dedicated video decoding hardware, overloading even the newest midrange devices.
Elite Compression closes the gap between H.263 and MPEG-4 compression by enabling mainstream midrange devices (most of the handsets in use) to deliver optimum video and audio playback. Based on the H.264 open standard, Elite Compression works with standard media players that are already installed on millions of handsets.
Elite Compression is added entirely at the headend, making deployment easy for operators. Because it requires no special handset players or upgrades, operators can instantly improve quality for subscribers.
Envivio’s flexible compression architecture means that operators now using the 4Caster C4 and M2 encoders can add Elite Compression with a software upgrade, via a Web interface or using Envivio’s 4Manager NMS. Elite Compression will be available in the next software releases of the 4Caster C4 and M2 encoders.
See Envivio at the NAB Show, Booth SU2424.
