SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Kartina TV, a German-based service provider serving the global Russian-speaking community has deployed Harmonic’s Electra XVM virtualized media processor for OTT multiscreen delivery. Utilizing the software-based media processing platform for real-time HEVC encoding, Kartina TV can deliver 150 SD and 30 HD channels to subscribers on a variety of devices using less bandwidth. The Electra XVM media processor is powered by Harmonic’s VOS virtualized media processing platform and architecture, which operates on common hardware platforms in IT data center environments.
“Currently, Kartina TV offers over 150 channels from countries located around the former Soviet Union, more than 2,000 on-demand movies and a large selection of HD channels. As we expand our OTT multiscreen offering, bandwidth efficiency, video quality and flexibility are key,” said Dimitri Dietrich, chief technology officer of Kartina TV. “By offering a new approach to encoding, Harmonic enables us to distribute additional video content in a fraction of the time and cost by leveraging IT economics.”
Virtual machine instances of the Electra XVM processor can be turned up or down dynamically on demand and leverage data center capacity according to the mix of tasks performed, from encoding to graphics, branding and playout.
At the heart of the Electra XVM media processor is the Harmonic Pure Compression Engine, a software encoding core that supports multiple codecs (e.g., MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and HEVC), formats (e.g., SD, HD, and UHD) and encoding schemes (e.g., CBR, VBR and ABR). Kartina TV is using the Electra XVM virtualized media processor alongside an MPEG-DASH packaging system.
