PORTLAND, ORE. & LONDON—Elemental Technologies has announced that its software is being used to standardized communication services company BT’s traditional and multiscreen headend services. The software will help to unify and expand the company’s BT TV Everywhere, BT Sport App and BT Ultra HD services.
BT utilizes Elemental for video coding (HEVC/H.265) and 4K content processing and delivery, specifically for its BT Sport Ultra HD live sports channel and the offer of Netflix in UHD on BT TV. BT also added end-to-end software defined video (SDV) technology from Elemental to support the launch of five new channels on BT TV Everywhere. For the BT Sport App, Elemental helps deliver live streaming sports content via multiscreen devices.
Specifically for BT TV Everywhere, Elemental manages a unified headend for subscription linear channels delivered to IPTV set-top boxes, as well as multiscreen devices. This includes the Elemental Conductor software, which manages Elemental Live encoder clusters that process channels of standard and HD content for delivery at a standard bitrate; the streams then pass to Elemental Delta for packaging to enable live-to-VOD delivery to connected devices. With this infrastructure, BT says it can scale from 90 to 250 channels and provide live, on-demand and time-shift services.
To help highlight their collaboration, BT and Elemental recently held a special event in London featuring live UEFA seminifinal coverage between Manchester City and Real Madrid in 4K.
