AMSTERDAM—Elemental Technologies has launched Elemental Delta, a video delivery platform that the company says will simplify the process of adding on-demand services, reduce distribution costs and more accurately manage content in multiscreen delivery deployments. After extensive testing, initial customers include major telco, over-the-top TV, broadcast, satellite and mobile operators in the U.S., Europe and Middle East.
“Delta is really focused on reducing costs, and making it easier to deploy very complicated workflows,” said Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies, told the press at its unveiling at the 2014 IBC Show. ‘The workflows our customers are rolling out today compared to the days of linear television to what you have to do today in the multiscreen world require you to release software updates in incredibly high frequency and that’s because the world around us that our customers are living in is changing so incredibly fast.
So imagine that complexity on top of the fact that you’re adding a bunch of new services like captured TV, networked PVRs, pause TV, or delay TV,” Blackman continued. “In the past, each of these services has required a different type of system. With Elemental Delta, you can do all of that, singularly in your origin server. “
Elemental Delta supports multiscreen delivery of advanced live-to-VOD services such as:
·Catch-up TV: Enabling viewers to replay TV shows broadcast hours or days earlier,
·Start-over TV: Time-shift TV controls let viewers replay a live broadcast already underway from the beginning and to switch back to a real-time broadcast feed. Targeted advertising streamed on top of existing commercial breaks offers distributors a new monetization avenue.
·nPVR: DVR controls, which enable creation and storage of live TV content recordings for playback on any device, are increasingly included as a component of pay TV subscriptions. nPVR capabilities help build customer loyalty and increase content consumption.
Elemental Delta combines just-in-time packaging, origin services, intelligent caching, dynamic ad insertion and replacement, and end-to-end encrypted content protection functions in a single platform. The platform simplifies multiscreen implementation by transforming any input into any output for high-quality, secure video delivery. The IP video delivery solution lowers storage, bandwidth and transit costs and helps content providers mitigate distribution expense by taking ownership of greater portions of the delivery infrastructure.
Elemental Delta provides on-the-fly support for all major adaptive streaming protocols, compression formats, and multiple digital rights management systems within a single framework. Protocols supported include HDS, HLS, Smooth Streaming and the MPEG-DASH standard, which supports on-demand, live and time-shift applications and services. Elemental Delta handles H.264 delivery as well as the new high-efficiency video coding (HEVC/H.265) codec needed for next-generation video delivery. To secure content, the platform combines embedded encryption and decryption capabilities with JIT DRM wrapping, enables protected assets to be stored and moved efficiently through the network and applies DRM in real time upon delivery. Finally, Elemental Delta has built-in failover and redundancy, whether on the ground or in the cloud.
Blackmon says Delta has been on the market for six months, and that it’s already been adopted in seven countries and multiple market segments. “So Delta benefits not just pay TV operators who with their own networks, it also helps programmers and OTT providers. We’re seeing adoption of Delta very broadly across many different segments in our space.”
