Harmonic exhibits its innovations for the deployment of OTT services in the cloud at NAB

The manufacturer has taken advantage of its presence at NAB to announce a service for OTT in Ultra High Definition HDR that will have, according to what they say, just 5 seconds of latency.

Jean Macher, business development director at Harmonic, has started the press conference of the company specialized in developing solutions for OTT, ensuring that there are already more than 35,200 OTT channels operating around the world with its technology. Of them, about 2,500 are cloud-native OTT channels, which represents a growth of 150% in just nine months.

Harmonic exhibits at NAB its innovations in video transmission for OTT services and television networks. As broadcasters and content providers strive to deliver better quality video content and unlock new revenue streams, agility and flexibility are critical.

Harmonic's software-based solutions in UHD, ATSC 3.0, IP video and its content-sensitive encoding technologies define the reference model for the future of streaming over OTT services and television networks. These solutions are offered as hardware or SaaS to enable business agility and provide exceptional quality of experience (QoE) on every screen at a low total cost of ownership.

Innovative solutions

At NAB 2018, Harmonic addresses the challenges of OTT video streaming with targeted innovations. Harmonic introduces its award-winning VOS family of media processing, including the new VOS SW Cluster media processing software and VOS 360 media processing SaaS.

VOS SW Cluster integrates market-leading multimedia processing capabilities with support for cloud environments and bare metal, enabling operators to quickly launch OTT services.

Furthermore, Harmonic offers simplified OTT video delivery through cloud-based channel origination on the VOS 360 SaaS, allowing operators to quickly migrate channels from playout to delivery to the end user for greater flexibility and at a lower cost per channel.

Harmonic also presents in Las Vegas its solutions for live sports events for OTT, with reduced latency comparable to that of live broadcasting and with impressive resolution in UHD and HDR using the VOS 360 SaaS.

With the VOS family, operators can deploy content-aware EyeQ encoding to reduce bandwidth demands for OTT video streaming, lower CDN costs and improve quality of experience. At NAB 2018, Harmonic debuts EyeQ support for HEVC.

All-IP Workflows

Harmonic debuts the Spectrum

The Electra media processor and Spectrum

Sports

Harmonic exhibits at its stand its new “end-to-end” UHD HDR solution for live streaming of sporting events. The solution integrates Harmonic's ViBE CP9000 contribution encoder for cloud ingestion and VOS 360 media processing SaaS for encoding, packaging, origin server and OTT distribution capabilities.

With the new solution, broadcasters, content owners and content providers can broadcast live sporting events on any screen with superior quality of experience (QoE), low latency and significant cost savings.

The manufacturer has taken advantage of its presence at NAB to announce a service for OTT in Ultra High Definition HDR that will have, according to what they say, just 5 seconds of latency. This new solution will be marketed via SaaS and is especially designed for live sports streaming.

Next generation video codecs

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have become a key innovation driver to optimize the video encoding process. Leveraging AI in the development of next-generation video codecs and content-aware encoding (CAE), Harmonic is leading the charge toward streaming higher-quality video at low bit rates.

The company will provide a valuable side-by-side comparison of codec efficiency between HEVC, AVC with Harmonic's EyeQ content-sensitive encoding technology, AV-1 and JVET.

Two success stories

Harmonic has announced that Vidgo will launch its next-generation OTT services based on Harmonic's VOS media processing platform. Because the VOS SW Cluster solution addresses every component of media processing in a private cloud, Vidgo can quickly launch a full suite of streaming video services while having the agility to scale quickly. Vidgo plans to launch its OTT services in the US market later this year with an attractive channel offering, a unique pricing model and a high-quality live streaming experience.

Fuji Television Network (Fuji TV), a leading television network in Japan, has deployed a cloud-based Harmonic playout solution for its Smart OTT service. Using Harmonic's cloud-born VOS media processing software, Fuji TV broadcasts its channels directly from a public cloud platform to simplify workflow and increase monetization opportunities. Systems integrator EVC provided expert advice on large-scale video distribution services and an advanced traffic system, helping to ensure the success of the rollout.