HD Cloud, a video technology service provider, has unveiled HD Accelerate, a service that can quickly transcode a two-hour movie file in multiple separate video formats. The service will be rolled out to large-scale VOD providers and film studio libraries in the coming months. HD Accelerate uses a parallel encoding technique developed by HD Cloud that enables an unlimited number of output formats.
HD Accelerate has performed 4500 video encodes at 100Mb/s, each in a 20-minute period using 900 processors, according to the company. HD Cloud handles large video files and high-bit-rate content (up to 1080p and 100Mb/s).
Since its launch, HD Cloud has increased its technology profile to address feature-film distributors’ needs for in-the-cloud transcoding of on-demand feeds. The value of cloud-based video transcoding lies in seamless integration with a wide range of video formats and systems, and HD Accelerate provides a solid base from which customers can deliver the most intensive video sessions.
HD Accelerate is a series of video scaling algorithms that HD Cloud has engineered for enhanced video transcoding throughput, particularly for on-demand video services. The company has typically performed 900 simultaneous encodes, and its recent enhancements to HD Accelerate enable far greater scalability and capacity for its cloud-computing-based service. HD Cloud currently performs terabytes of transcoding sessions for customers, applying metadata to completed files and automatically distributing files to destinations ranging from syndication Web sites, content delivery networks and local archives to content management systems and local drives.
The HD Accelerate technology was created for large-scale video libraries and rights holders that need high-capacity session control. The concept was married with another HD Cloud innovation, a security strategy in which proxy files are wiped from the server cloud once files are encoded, adding another layer of protection for customers.
HD Cloud, which uses Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) service, supports a wide range of video formats from H.264 to Real Video and Windows Media and supports up to 1080i/p resolution and 100Mb/s throughput. HD Cloud offers various video input formats, including H.261, H.263, H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MJPEG, On2 VP6, Real Video, Windows Media (AVI/WMV) and 3GPP. Output formats include H.261, H.263, H.264, MPEG-2 and 3GPP.
HD Cloud also provides a RESTful API for integration with other systems, including VMS providers, file transfer accelerators, CDNs, security vendors and legacy transcoding systems.
