Workflow for Media Prima's "Catch-Up TV" service features the full range of Digital Rapids solutions from encoding through delivery
November 19, 2007 -- Markham, Ontario: Digital Rapids -- a leading developer of scalable solutions for content ingest, encoding, transcoding, protection, streaming and delivery -- announced today that Media Prima Berhad, the leading media group in Malaysia, is using a complete range of Digital Rapids systems to power Catch-Up TV, their new online TV-on-demand service.
Catch-Up TV enables Web users to view previously-broadcast programs from Media Prima's four television networks -- TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9 -- online, enabling viewers to watch current and classic programming on demand at high quality.
Designed by Digital Rapids and installed by systems integrator Graphics Vision (M) Sdn. Bhd., the Media Prima Catch-Up TV workflow includes a full complement of Digital Rapids solutions:
- StreamZ media encoding servers equipped with the Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder ingest, encode, stream and archive live feeds from the four broadcast television networks in H.264 and Adobe® Flash® 8 (On2 VP6) formats
- Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager enterprise-level encoder management software provides centralized control, scheduling and fault tolerance for the StreamZ systems
- Digital Rapids Transcode Manager scalable, automated transcoding software converts edited file-based source material to H.264 and Adobe Flash formats for archiving and distribution
- Digital Rapids Copper data delivery software, integrated with Transcode Manager, provides accelerated, secure and reliable transfer of finished on-demand media files from Media Prima to Limelight Networks, the Content Delivery Network (CDN) used for delivering the content to Media Prima's viewers
- The StreamP portable streaming media encoder is used on a laptop for encoding remote on-location feeds, and transferring them back to headquarters using Copper to overcome the performance limitations of remote networks
Shows will be available free on Catch-Up TV online within no more than 12 hours of their original broadcast, and after one week will be moved into the archive library for fee-based viewing. Original content including Internet exclusives, behind-the-scenes footage, bloopers and contests will also be available to Web viewers.
"To meet our goal of becoming the online TV destination of choice for Malaysians, it was critical for us to carefully choose solutions that would enable us to deliver a high-quality experience to our audience with high reliability," said Paul Moss, General Manager for Network Media Portals at Media Prima. "Digital Rapids solutions not only met these criteria, but their ability to work seamlessly together in a complete workflow from encoding through delivery made them the ideal choice for this project. I'm happy to say that we already have online delivery down to four hours after a program's on-air transmission."
"Each of our solutions offers market-leading benefits on its own, but by combining them seamlessly to form complete ingest-through-delivery workflows, the result is even more powerful than the sum of its components," said Brick Eksten, President of Digital Rapids Corporation. "With Catch-Up TV, Media Prima is taking excellent advantage of the growing new media distribution opportunities offered by the Internet, and we're very pleased to be working with Media Prima to deliver top-quality content to their viewers."
For more information on Digital Rapids products, please visit www.digital-rapids.com.
About Digital Rapids Corporation - Digital Rapids is a leading developer of professional hardware and software solutions for video ingest, encoding, transcoding, protection, streaming, and delivery. Digital Rapids offers solutions that scale from individual applications to enterprise and global workflows, with the proven expertise to help our customers maximize their productivity and the value of their content in the evolving digital media market. Digital Rapids products integrate seamlessly into new and existing post production, broadcast, institutional and media distribution environments, dramatically increasing the volume and quality of media produced while lowering overall costs. Digital Rapids Corporation (www.digital-rapids.com) is headquartered in Ontario, Canada with sales offices in the United States, the UK and Australia.
