Elemental Delta Originates New Era of Intelligent Video Delivery

AMSTERDAM and PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) 2014 – Elemental Technologies, the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery, today announced the launch of Elemental^® Delta, a video delivery platform that helps content owners and distributors add new time-shifted services, reduce distribution costs and more precisely manage content in multiscreen delivery deployments. After extensive testing, initial customers include major telco, over-the-top TV (OTT), broadcast, satellite and mobile operators in the U.S., Europe and Middle East.

Time-shifted services enrich live TV experiences, can be adapted for multiscreen viewing and offer new ways to package live content alongside targeted advertising. Increasingly, consumers expect their video anywhere, on any device and want to view that content with DVR controls like time delay, pause or repeat. Between 2011 and early 2014, the number of urban television consumers watching time-shifted content increased from 30% to 43%.

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, catch-up TV allows pay TV operators to offer an alternative to on-demand movies and to monetize content through targeted advertising.
• 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 (JIT) packaging, origin services, intelligent caching, dynamic ad insertion and replacement, and end-to-end encrypted content protection functions in a single platform. The platform reduces multiscreen system complexity with the ability to transform 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.

"Increased demand for mobile content and apps is due to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. These devices, with their advanced multimedia capabilities, are driving the rapid consumption of dynamic and rich mobile content, such as streaming HD video and access to the cloud. The surge in mobile users accessing more dynamic content on various devices poses a key performance issue, such as slow response times and higher level of packet loss due to the nature of the unreliable mobile network environment," wrote Vincent Fu, Principal Research Analyst and Akshay Sharma, Research Director for Gartner¹.

"This necessitates a new class of video delivery infrastructure, such as Elemental Delta, that is specifically architected for multiscreen content delivery and emerging, value-add live-to-VOD services," said Aslam Khader, chief product officer for Elemental.

Unlike generalized multiscreen delivery services, Elemental Delta provides on-the-fly support for all major adaptive streaming protocols, compression formats, and multiple digital rights management (DRM) systems within a single framework. Among supported protocols are 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.  

"Elemental Delta enables video providers to leverage a single multiscreen delivery workflow for every connected device, eliminating the management of multiple CDNs and network topologies," said Khader.

Software-Defined Video

A complement to existing CDN topologies, Elemental Delta is based on Elemental's software-defined video approach that allows video providers to run software across an optimal combination of dedicated and virtualized resources in private and public data centers. Together, Elemental Delta and software-defined infrastructure enable easy integration of live-to-VOD services into existing broadcast workflows, from live broadcast capture to video encoding at the network edge. Elemental Delta is available as a cloud service, VM subscription, or appliance.

Elemental at IBC 2014

Elemental will feature its full suite of software-defined video solutions at IBC 2014 September 12 - 16 at the RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre (Hall 4, Stand 4.B75) in Amsterdam. The company will demonstrate how its video processing and delivery products can automate repurposing of live video content for on-demand catch-up TV, pause TV, and nPVR video services and support end-to-end content encryption, integration of third party DRM technologies and ad insertion for content monetization. Elemental will also showcase its leading HEVC and 4K UHD TV video processing; software updates to its Elemental Live and Elemental Stream products -- including support for new HEVC and 4K UHD services at 50/60 frames per second and 10-bit color; and, Elemental Cloud for live and on-demand video processing and delivery in pure cloud and hybrid ground-cloud deployments. Elemental is named as a technology enabler to the BBC and Turner Sports, both of which were designated finalists for the IBC 2014 Innovation Awards. Award winners will be announced at the show. To schedule a meeting with an Elemental representative at IBC, please contact us.

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.

Press Contact

Laura Barber
Elemental Technologies
[email protected]
(503) 703-3638

¹ Gartner, "Adopt Embedded Mobile Network Operators' CDNs for Enterprise Apps to Improve the User Experience",  Akshay K. Sharma, Vincent Fu,  9 April 2014

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SOURCE Elemental