ViewCast has introduced the latest in its family of Niagra encoding platforms that distribute high-quality video over IP and mobile networks. The new Niagara 7550 takes advantage of the latest multicore processing technology, greatly expanding its adaptive streaming capabilities.
This has made the 7550 the most powerful, feature-rich streaming appliance for Web-based delivery of high-definition video currently available from ViewCast. By enabling users to simultaneously leverage multiple adaptive streaming formats — including Apple HTTP adaptive streaming for iPads and iPhones, and Adobe Flash streaming — the Niagara 7550 is ideal for professional broadcasting applications and other professional-level HD video distribution applications.
The Niagara 7550 lets users quickly capture and stream premium quality audio and video to IP and mobile networks in multiple formats and at multiple bit rates — all simultaneously. It offers a touch control interface that streamlines and simplifies operation. A high-resolution widescreen monitor on the front panel displays captured video, and multisegment LED meters and a headphone connection are provided for audio monitoring.
The Niagara 7550 accepts standard- or HD video through its SDI interface, and can switch on-the-fly between HD or SD sources without having to re-initialize the system. An SDI loop-out is also provided to facilitate workflow. Audio inputs include analog stereo (balanced and unbalanced), two channels of AES/EBU and eight stereo pairs of embedded SDI audio.
The Niagara 7550 also includes ViewCast SimulStream technology, which enables a single video source to generate several video streams at once, with each stream configured differently for laptops, cell phones or mobile devices. It allows simultaneous streaming in many popular formats, including Windows Media (Silverlight), Flash and H.264. The Niagara 7550 also supports 3GPP and 3GPP2 for mobile applications.
Closed-caption extraction and rendering, de-interlacing and inverse telecine are standard on the Niagara 7550, as is bitmap overlay, scaling and cropping. If its incoming signal is interrupted, the Niagara 7550 will default to a standby message that the user can customize.
