Advanced Television

Thomson Video Networks boosts compression performance of ViBE encoders

July 21, 2015

At IBC2015, Thomson Video Networks will unveil new software releases for its ViBE EM4000, ViBE VS7000, and ViBE XT1000 HD/SD encoding solutions that significantly enhance compression efficiency across all current and emerging standards including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and high-efficiency video coding (HEVC). The new software releases are enabled by an all-new release of MediaFlexSUITE, the company’s unified, resilient, and flexible system for simplifying management of broadcast and multi-screen content delivery services.

“With our ViBE family of encoders, we have set the industry standard for compression technology that provides the ideal balance of video quality and bandwidth efficiency. These latest software releases take that commitment forward by delivering outstanding compression efficiency gains for broadcast, including IPTV, cable, DTH satellite, and DTTV, as well as for multi-screen delivery,” said Christophe Delahousse, president, Thomson Video Networks. “For instance, our ViBE encoders give customers the flexibility to maximize video quality at a lower bitrate, or maximize available bandwidth to deliver the best video quality for all compression standards.”

The new software releases for the ViBE VS7000, ViBE EM4000, and ViBE XT1000 will be available as upgrades for all existing deployments whether they are software-based, hardware-based, or cloud-based. The upgrades feature new algorithms, implemented in the core compression engine used by Thomson Video Networks’ products, that are designed to improve compression performance by 10 percent for HEVC and MPEG-4 AVC encoding and by five percent for MPEG-2. The ViBE VS7000 now delivers increased compression performance through a premium MPEG-2 encoding mode and enhanced support for HEVC, including interlace support and statistical multiplexing.

In addition, the ViBE EM4000 now features subtitling and audio description via Flextream 2.0, Thomson Video Networks’ next-generation statistical multiplexing technology. With Flextream 2.0, the ViBE EM4000 is now capable of mixing intermittently peaking streams, such as DVB subtitling and audio description components, in the statistical multiplexing pool. This ensures optimal bandwidth usage for video with the potential for an additional five percent bandwidth savings, depending on the channel lineup.

At the same time, Thomson Video Networks will launch the second release of MediaFlexSUITE, designed to greatly simplify services management for customers operating across multiple delivery platforms. Combined with MediaFlexOS, the suite can provision branding and compression resources based on priorities for deployment speed, video quality requirements, bandwidth optimization, and content customization. MediaFlexSUITE provides a unified view of the entire operation to streamline tasks such as migrating services between compression resources, deploying new services rapidly in a data center, dynamically updating the channel lineup, or extending file transcoding capabilities with external cloud resources.

Delahousse added, “With the MediaFlexSUITE simplifying operation and service management across multiple delivery platforms, the ViBE family reinforces our Behind Every Screen® strategy to provide the best compression technologies for any deployment — whether our customers select a hardware- or software-based solution for delivery on premises or in the cloud, and whether they’re delivering turnaround or premium content.”

Categories: Press Releases