Softel and Harmonic will show the integration of their systems at NAB

For the first time at NAB 2011, Softel will demonstrate a workflow for subtitling (captioning/subtitling) integrated with Harmonic's Omneon solutions. The solution integrates seamlessly between the Omneon Media Application Server and the Softel Swift VTX secondary data encoding/decoding system.

For the first time at NAB 2011, Softel will demonstrate a workflow for subtitling (captioning/subtitling) integrated with Harmonic's Omneon solutions. The solution integrates seamlessly between the Omneon Media Application Server and the Softel Swift VTX secondary data encoding/decoding system, enabling workflows called and controlled across the Media Application Server under a single common interface.

This complete integration allows ancillary data on media assets to be extracted and used as metadata in the Omneon media server, as well as streamlining asset search and location. Additionally, sub-clips can be created with titles as start/end markers. Titles and subtitles can be extracted, transcoded and inserted in any format through the common interface, with support for subtitles, open subtitling, teletext and Softel Multitext.

The integrated solution significantly reduces process management and operational costs, and provides improved security workflow by allowing only users authorized to make changes to media assets to do so.

Ben Davenport, Solutions Marketing Manager at Harmonic, has recognized that "ancillary data is a very important piece of the broadcast puzzle and so we were determined to offer our clients a robust and complete solution capable of streamlining processes and increasing efficiency and minimizing operational costs. We have worked with Softel for many years with great success, appreciating the experience and foresight that Softel brings to this complex market. Our joint engineering teams have created an attractive and cutting-edge technology for our clients."

Furthermore, Sam Pemberton, CEO of Softel, added that this integration "will have a major impact on the efficiency of subtitling operations for users of the Omneon Media Application Server. Regardless of the source or destination format, users of this system will be able to search data transparently and completely with all the main subtitles and subtitling workflows in the Omneon operating environment."

The Omneon Media Application Server provides the foundation for the development and deployment of multimedia applications. By combining a unique vision of content virtualization across managed systems and core media processing services, it accelerates application development and minimizes the complexity of media management. The system provides tiered user access to content stored on Harmonic's infrastructure, allowing users to manipulate media assets with the coordination of server applications to optimize workflows.