Digital Rapids Expands Support for Subtitles and Advertising Insertion

With new updates for encoding and streaming, Digitl Rapids has announced at NAB powerful new enhancements to its Digital Rapids Stream software for the company's StreamZ, StreamZHD and Flux encoding solutions.

Digital Rapids has announced powerful new enhancements to its Digital Rapids Stream software for the company's StreamZ, StreamZHD and Flux encoding solutions. These new features also apply to the StreamZ Live family of live streaming encoders and Digital Rapids Transcode Manager automated high-volume file transcoding software.

New features coming soon include improved support for adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming subtitles and support for automated ad insertion when live streaming with Adobe Flash technologies.

New software updates recently released include support for closed captioning powered by Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming and HTTP Live Streaming via the optional iPhone/iPad module. Subtitles obtained from live or file-based sources can also be maintained and reformatted if necessary for distribution in the chosen format.

These increased caption retention capabilities enable greater accessibility to online content for those with hearing impairments, while allowing content distributors to comply with new legal requirements, such as the United States' 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which requires support for captions in online videos.

Added support for using prompt messages with Adobe Flash technologies improves content owners' ability to monetize their media across multiple screens in fully automated workflows. Cued messages on live input sources, typically used in broadcast operations, can be detected to automate the insertion of cue points into outputs that go to Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR applications. These cue points are then used to trigger downstream events, including ad insertion or regional or personalized ad substitution, such as ad delivery workflows through Adobe Auditude as part of Adobe's recently announced Project Primetime initiative. Digital Rapids encoders support Adobe streaming technologies, including RTMP streaming and HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) through Flash Media Server software.

Even more features in the latest software updates include the creation of timed DFXP text files from live or file-based sources; advanced configuration options for streaming to Apple devices; increased video processing plug-in support for 23.976p to 59.94p frame rate conversion; and a range of small improvements and refinements. Encoder models based on Digital Rapids Flux hardware technology now also offer VITC timecode-based triggering in the source input vertical locking interval, complementing the existing capability for VITC-based triggering on ancillary data.