Video Breakthroughs

Ultra-HD 4K broadcasting may be all the rage at NAB, but the implementation of the HEVC codec that makes it all possible is happening first for streaming video over-the-top. At NAB, virtually every video processing developer is highlighting adoption of HEVC/H.265 into their products; here we'll take a look at a few of the most notable who were willing to talk about their NAB plans in advance.

ATEME has announced what it says is the industry’s first open source implementation of a software media player supporting High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). The implementation is available immediately. Service providers and broadcasters are able to accelerate experimentation of the new HEVC Codec standard in the field thanks to this development, the company says.

GPAC is an open source media player that can be used to playback live or file-based audio and video content and also to encapsulate and transmit such content as a stream. Those functionalities are now extended to files or streams encoded with HEVC, the latest video compression format standardized by ITU as H.265. GPAC has been validated with a 1080p High Definition content delivery chain. Work is now ongoing to extend the use cases to Ultra High Definition.

With over-the-top content delivery, HEVC and 4K becoming hot topics for this year's NAB Show, Harmonic is unveiling significant enhancements to its ProMedia suite of adaptive bit rate (ABR) solutions for multiscreen processing and delivery that include support for HEVC and Ultra HD.

The product is also now more closely integrated with the Harmonic MediaGrid shared storage system and is offering improved support for closed captioning, regional blackouts, and Nielsen ID3 tagging.

The ViBE VS7000 multi-screen video encoding/transcoding system from Thomson Video Networks now provides support for the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) compression standard for live and offline applications. The company says the ViBE VS7000 will lower operator OPEX for delivery of a wide range of convergent TV services including OTT as well as traditional IPTV and cable applications, thanks to the use of HEVC.

During NAB Thomson Video Networks will demonstrate its new live and file-based HEVC encoding solution up to Ultra HD format, working with various HEVC players. One such device is a player from Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO, which has just announced that it will license video decoding software for HEVC to enable full HD video streaming on smartphones and other devices.

The ViBE VS7000 will also be demonstrated with VisualOn’s OnStream MediaPlayer+ running HEVC decoding on Nexus tablets. OnStream MediaPlayer+ enables high-quality playback across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, Mac OS and Windows Desktop.

Encoding specialist Telestream couldn't contain itself to just one piece of news for this week's NAB conference. On Friday, it announced that Vantage, it's video transcoding and workflow solution, is going to the cloud. A new product, Vantage Cloud, runs on a cloud-based infrastructure, and connects with local workflows. That gives customers the flexibility to turn to Telestream's cloud encoder when they have a temporary spike in processing needs, or when they need outside help working with new regulations or formats. Combining local and cloud solutions, Telestream says, creates a unified hybrid workflow where users can get jobs done quickly without large investments in hardware. Telestream is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on the cloud solution.

4K/HD HEVC CODEC for Video Streaming :

We exhibit some types of our HEVC Encoder. These achieve UHD Video Streaming, HD mobile video streaming, and live streaming also, because of high compression efficiency and stable CBR of our HEVC encoders.

- High Quality and Stable CBR Software HEVC Encoder SDK responded up to 4K

- HD Real-time Software HEVC Encoder

- Real-time FPGA HEVC Encoder, this is the first step to the ASIC Encoder