Aspera, an IBM Company, Partners with EVS and Elemental to Bring Unprecedented Second Screen Video Streaming to Millions of Sports Fans Worldwide

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New cloud-based service delivers near-real time HD content to global sports fans

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Sep 09, 2014, 08:00 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that Aspera, an IBM company, together with EVS, a leading provider of broadcast and media production systems, and Elemental, the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery, deployed the first large-scale system for high-resolution live video streaming via the cloud to enable viewers to watch live HD media and sporting events from their connected devices.

Demand for coverage of international sporting events continues to increase, with more and more viewers turning to the Internet for live match streaming. The challenge for many broadcasters is the ability to quickly transfer and distribute match content across smartphones, tablets, laptops and connected TVs. To support this growing online fan base, EVS integrated Aspera FASP high-speed transfer and Elemental video processing technologies to create a revolutionary cloud-based content delivery workflow that scales to stream the world's most watched sporting events to a global fan base.

The collaboration resulted in a unique end-to-end production system that is capable of near-live distribution of live action sporting events to streaming networks. This provides regional broadcasters with access to all live camera feeds directly from sporting venues rather than from a single central live stream feed, giving them far greater speed and flexibility in the content they distribute:

Through its C-Cast technology at the heart of the workflow, EVS captures video of multiple cameras angles from on-location live production feeds.
Embedded Aspera FASP high-speed transfer software is used to transfer the video feeds in real-time across continents from sports venues directly to an Aspera On Demand server software running in the cloud. The new Aspera Auto-Scale platform manages transfer server instances to meet demand when workloads spike.
Elemental Cloud video processing ingests the mezzanine format, converting it into the multiple bit rates, resolutions and streaming protocols required to serve a full range of fan devices.
The final output of high-quality, high-resolution live content is delivered to regional broadcasters and streamed to online viewers across the globe.

"On the world's biggest stages, Aspera's high-speed file transfer technology helps to push the boundaries of content streaming to sports fans worldwide," said Michelle Munson, CEO of Aspera. "The close collaboration with EVS and Elemental gives sports broadcasters and content delivery networks the freedom to reimagine how to broadcast events in radically new ways. This is only the beginning."

"Just like on the field, it takes the best players to come together in a team effort to broadcast a premier international sporting event, which is why we collaborated with world-class partners like Aspera and Elemental," said Joop Janssen, CEO of EVS. "With Aspera's industry-leading high-speed file transfer software and Elemental's industry-leading video processing solutions, we were able to create an innovative service that surpassed the expectations of the broadcast industry."

"Elemental is thrilled to partner with Aspera and EVS to enable broadcasters to offer a complete range of multimedia and interactive services and provide entirely new perspectives on sports action," said Keith Wymbs, chief marketing officer for Elemental. "The power and elasticity of this architecture enables EVS to deliver premium video content that would otherwise not be available to broadcast to viewers."

The complete end-to-end platform has been proven to deliver hundreds of concurrent video streams transferred over the wide area network in real time directly to cloud infrastructure. This has been achieved with an effective transfer rate as fast as the live video capture rate at sports venues in spite of heavy round-trip latency and packet loss (over 200 milliseconds and 10 percent peak packet loss over the WAN). The result is a consistent high-performance delivery of live feeds and near live broadcast quality video.

Aspera will be showcasing its suite of high-speed transfer software and services at IBC 2014 at the RAI in Amsterdam in Hall 7, Stand G30 on September 12-16. EVS will demonstrate its media production and broadcast systems in Hall 8, Stand B90. Elemental will feature its full suite of software-defined video solutions in Hall 4, Stand 4.B75 at the RAI.

About Aspera
Aspera, an IBM company, is the creator of next-generation transport technologies that move the world's data at maximum speed regardless of file size, transfer distance and network conditions. Based on its patented, Emmy® award-winning FASP™ protocol, Aspera software fully utilizes existing infrastructures to deliver the fastest, most predictable file-transfer experience. Aspera's core technology delivers unprecedented control over bandwidth, complete security and uncompromising reliability. Organizations across a variety of industries on six continents rely on Aspera software for the business-critical transport of their digital assets. Please visit http://www.asperasoft.com and follow us on Twitter @asperasoft for more information.

About EVS
EVS provides its customers with reliable and innovative technology to enable the production of live, enriched video programming, allowing them to work more efficiently and boost their revenue streams. Its industry-leading broadcast and media production systems are used by broadcasters, production companies, post-production facilities, film studios, content owners and archive libraries around the globe. It spans four key markets – Sports, Entertainment, News and Media.

Founded in 1994, its innovative Live Slow Motion system revolutionised live broadcasting. Its reliable and integrated tapeless solutions, based around its market-leading XT server range, are now widely used to deliver live productions worldwide. Today, it continues to develop practical innovations, such as its C-Cast second-screen delivery platform, to help customers maximise the value of their media content.

The company is headquartered in Belgium and has offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. Approximately 465 EVS professionals from 20 offices are selling its branded products in over 100 countries, and provide customer support globally. EVS is a public company traded on Euronext Brussels: EVS, ISIN: BE0003820371. For more information, please visit www.evs.com

About Elemental
Elemental Technologies is the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, the company pioneered the use of software-based video processing to distribute video over IP networks. Solutions from Elemental provide the flexibility, scalability and performance required to deliver high quality video via turnkey, cloud-based and virtualized deployment models. Powering video experiences for more than 500 leading media franchises worldwide, Elemental helps pay TV operators, content programmers, broadcasters and enterprise customers bring video to any screen, anytime – all at once. The company has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, China, Russia, India and Brazil. To learn more, please visit www.elementaltechnologies.com and follow @elementaltech on Twitter.