PORTLAND, ORE.—Canby Telcom, a Portland-Ore.-based broadband and communications cooperative will offer local broadcast channels via Roku in one of the first deployments of local broadcast stations in an over the top environment. The “EZVideo” channel will initially deliver the live feeds of KATU (ABC), KOIN (CBS), KGW (NBC), KOPB and OPB Plus (PBS), KPTV (Fox), KRCW, and KPDX (Fox), according to sister publication Multichannel News, which also reports that Canby will pay the local stations retransmission feeds. The channel, which will cost $14.95 per month, will also offer video on demand from its local origination channel CTV5 and other video applications without a traditional video infrastructure. The service is expected to launch early next month.
Canby, which has approximately 7,000 subscribers in the Portland, Ore. area, will use Elemental Systems’ Elemental Live video processing systems to adapt the traditional MPEG-2 broadcast channels to multi-bitrate Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). The eight local live broadcast channels are packaged into the authenticated EZVideo channel on the Roku platform, which is then delivered by Canby over a secure broadband connection to Canby subscribers who have Roku players.
“Our new EZVideo channel on Roku allows us to provide an affordable, premium-quality video service targeted to customers who are looking to augment their current digital television service with an OTT solution,” said Keith Galitz, president of Canby Telcom. “With the help of Elemental and Roku, we continue to develop and implement new products and services that ensure our customers and community remain current with the latest technology trends.”
On June 3 at 10 a.m. PDT, Elemental will host a live-streamed video panel showcasing the Canby Telcom EZVideo Pay TV Lite model. The event will feature Ken Pyle, co-founder of Viodi, Brandon Zupancic, vice president of network operations at Canby Telcom, Patrick McCreary, vice president, general manager KPTV/KPDX. Click here to register for the webinar.
Additionally, Elemental will showcase this service at the Cable Show/NCTA 2013 June 10-12 in Washington, D.C. in the CableNet Pavilion.
