NEVADA CITY, CALIF.—Telestream has released a new version of its Vantage workflow automation platform with support for more transcoding formats to facilitate multiscreen delivery and new device interoperability capabilities.
Focusing on the growing needs of content owners seeking to develop multiplatform distribution architectures, the latest version of Vantage includes support for more transcoding formats across the Vantage Transcode product family. Full 4K support and HEVC encoding are now available in Vantage Transcode Multiscreen and Vantage Transcode IPTV VOD. In addition, XAVC decoding and ProRes 4444 encoding have been added to Vantage Transcode Pro.
Telestream has simplified automated content production with Telestream Post Producer, which runs on the Vantage platform. With Vantage 6.3, editors can design production templates in Avid, Adobe and Final Cut Pro editing systems. Post Producer can then use those templates to mass-produce hundreds of customized outputs automatically. This facilitates the creation of templates and lets users visualize how a template will look prior to rendering.
With the Digital Production Partnership (DPP) initiative's October deadline quickly approaching, Vantage adds several new capabilities for assembling and encoding DPP AS-11 MXF files. The Vantage DPP Workflow Portal allows entry of DPP metadata and the creation of multi-part DPP packages from one or more media files. Post Producer automatically assembles the DPP timeline, including bars, tones, slates and correct multi-part spacing. The entire DPP solution is completely unified and includes full encoding, timeline rendering and metadata assembly without requiring editing personnel or XML programmers.
Vantage 6.3 also adds the ability to accept work orders from a standard spreadsheet, allowing hundreds of jobs to be submitted using a spreadsheet exported as a CSV. This simplifies submission for Vantage users who typically organize media metadata and instructions in a spreadsheet; these sheets can now be provided directly to Vantage. A single work order can contain instructions for hundreds of jobs, each with a different source file including instructions for content assembly and graphics application, transcoding parameters, delivery information, subtitle files, titles to be applied, FTP destination, and more.
Work order structure is entirely customizable to allow complete control over process automation. This powerful new feature streamlines the automation of Vantage transcoding and Post Producer workflows, and is included in all products on the Vantage platform.
Vantage now includes a new proxy viewer for the Web Workflow Portal, improving frame accuracy and adding features such as title safe guides, captioning, and hot key control (JKL-style). Vantage 6.3 also includes improved dashboard metrics—including storage space remaining, CPU load, database size, and other metrics—provide a full picture of the hardware utilization across a Vantage Array. When using the reporting option, Vantage now allows historical reports showing usage levels across multiple machines and services. Reports can also be generated showing daily, hourly, or weekly usage and peak server capacity to ensure proper resource planning and improve turnaround. A new SQL deployment tool offers improved database support, allowing easier installation into SQL enterprise environments.
Vantage partner integrations have also been expanded with the addition of Nexidia QC integration which automates quality control for closed captions, languages, and video descriptions. The Nexidia QC integration enables Telestream Vantage users to utilize Nexidia QC’s full functionality anywhere in the Vantage workflow, ensuring media meets FCC regulations.
