Virgin Media pilots MPEG-DASH adaptive streaming powered by Harmonic

The solution used, ProMedia Suite, optimizes multi-screen delivery by eliminating the need to separately encode, encrypt, store and transport each piece of video content to ensure compatibility with multiple HTTP delivery formats.

Virgin Media, the first broadband, TV and mobility provider in the United Kingdom, has deployed the Promedia Suite solution from Harmonic to test the new dynamic adaptive streaming over the HTTP protocol (MPEG-DASH).

Using the real-time transcoding provided by ProMedia Live and the ProMedia Package stream compactor at its headend in London, Virgin Media is delivering high-quality broadcast more efficiently and cost-effectively to TVs, computers, tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, and other connected IP devices. A live demonstration of the MPEG-DASH workflow is taking place these days at the Cologne ANGA COM 2013 trade fair.

Dale Barnes, director of advanced technologies and innovation at Virgin Media, said: "As part of an integrated head-end solution, Harmonic's ProMedia Suite optimizes multi-screen delivery by eliminating the need to separately encode, encrypt, store and transport each piece of video content to ensure compatibility with multiple HTTP delivery formats. The demo at ANGA COM will highlight the operational efficiencies achieved by implementing an MPEG-DASH-based workflow for cutting-edge multi-screen services. generation that converge in an ABR format, and unified multi-screen delivery for tablets, PCs and smartphones, in addition to set-top boxes and smart TVs.”

ProMedia Live enables MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC H.264 content to be transcoded to multiple high-quality adaptive bit rate streams optimized for Virgin Media's MPEG-DASH service. Additionally, ProMedia Live effectively manages metadata information such as language, subtitles, and advertising entry and exit signage. ProMedia Live integrates with Harmonic's ProMedia suite, streamlining encapsulation and encryption processes. Completely software-based, this flexible, high-performance solution can be scaled to support hundreds of simultaneous tracks, simplifying the deployment of multi-screen services.