BOSTON—Actus Digital has announced that it has hired Gary Learner to the role of executive vice president of business development.

In his new role, Learner will be responsible for expanding Actus Digital’s global footprint and ensuring a smooth transition for new customers, per the company’s announcement.

Learner was the co-founder and chief technology officer of Volicon and has more than 20 years of experience in the broadcast and media industries.

“When Volicon announced that it would no longer be making or supporting its monitoring systems, we started to see a wave of new customers looking for a replacement,” said Sima Levy, CEO of Actus Digital. “Gary’s expertise in media compliance and monitoring will assure a seamless transition for these customers while also giving us the capacity to manage the burgeoning global demand for our platform, which is the most comprehensive on the market.”

For more information, visit www.actusdigital.com.  

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Van Balasundaram is the latest member of the Volicon engineering team, joining as a systems engineer. He is based out of Sutton, England and will report to Volicon’s Senior Sales Director Paul Higuera.

Van Balasundaram

Prior to coming on board at Volicon, Balasundaram served as director of marketing at Digital TV Labs. He also previously held positions at Harris Systems, Ipercast International, and with BT. According to Volicon’s press release, he has experience working as a sales engineer, solution architect, platform manager, and marketing director for digital video delivery systems and services.

Volicon, which is now part of Verizon Digital Media Services, is a provider of enterprise media intelligence services.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Volicon is taking up residence in the Brazilian state of Bahia, as the company announced that TV Bahia has deployed the Volicon Observer across six of its stations. The digital video monitoring and logging system will be used for recording of TV Bahia broadcasts, ad verification and content repurposing for web and mobile distribution.

The content from TV Bahia that is captured by the Observer system is maintained on both main and backup servers. TV Bahia staff will be able to access recordings from all six station outputs through an intuitive browser-based interface that features tools for rapid searches, review and extraction of content.

Volicon is now a part of Verizon Digital Media Services.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Hawaii television is getting a new channel to cover political news in the state capitol building in Honolulu, and ‘Ōlelo Community Media is aiding the effort by deploying Volicon’s Observer digital video monitoring and logging system. The system will capture feeds from chamber meetings and auditorium hearings and make it accessible through a single interface for video review and trimming for the new Hawaii Government Public Network.

The Observer receives video over a fiber infrastructure from up to four cameras in each hearing room, which is consolidated into a single picture-in-picture feed. Stored video can be accessed through a media player interface and use “mark in” and “mark out” controls to create clips and video segments.

The installation of the Volicon Observer is part of a larger infrastructure and signal transport upgrade put in place by ‘Ōlelo Community Media, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, the Hawaii State Legislature and the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Volicon Vice President of Product Management Andrew Sachs has been announced as a presenter for the upcoming PBS Technology Conference. Sachs, along with PBS Senior Director of Media Operations Steve Scheel, will present a session titled “Closed Captioning Quality Lifecycle,” which he says will show how to effectively maintain broadcast compliance with FCC requirements.

Andrew Sachs

Among the points of discussion expected in Sachs and Scheel’s presentation are the comparisons of broadcast caption quality against the original caption quality report done prior to file-based distribution and how this approach enables identification and isolation of potential errors in the broadcast chain. It will also cover an automated solution that has been implemented at PBS for caption compliance and to improve viewer experience.

PBS TechCon16 is scheduled for April 13-15 and will take place at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. “Closed Captioning Quality Lifecycle” is slotted for 11:30 a.m. on April 15. 

LOS ANGELES—Volicon is now a part of the Verizon Digital Media Services family, as the two companies announced an agreement that will see Verizon acquire the video capture, archival, compliance monitoring and clip creation workflows provider. Now a part of AOL, Verizon Digital Media Services says Volicon will enable content creators, publishers, broadcasters and enterprises to deliver their content to audiences on any device.

“Volicon’s role as a trusted provider to more than 1,200 broadcast and video operators around the world, combined with deep expertise in video monitoring and analysis, will improve visibility, transparency, and quality of our clients content and ads over our global delivery footprint,” said Bob Toohey, Verizon Digital Media Services president.

Combining Volicon’s technology with Verizon’s Video Lifecycle Solution will reportedly provide customers an option to take broadcast feeds and channels directly to OTT cloud-based delivery models. According to the press release, both companies already have complementary video workflow tools that generate assets, clips, highlights and social sharing opportunities from existing live, linear and VOD workflows.

Volicon was founded in 2005 by Eli Warawski, Julius Perl and Yehuda Brand. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This acquisition of Volicon follows Verizon’s 2015 announcement of acquiring a software package from ABC/Disney, and the 2014 integration with Comcast’s thePlatform.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Horse racing network TVG is expanding its Observer monitoring and logging system from Volicon after recently acquiring rival network HRTV. The two stations now work out of TVG’s Los Angeles studios with Volicon systems allowing compliance monitoring for each HD network signal and providing desktop access to live and recorded content from TVG and HRTV.

The Observer systems records all aired content from both stations and provides instant access to it through a Web-based interface. Multiple users can locate, stream and review content immediately after broadcast through the desktop. The Observer system can also be used to check ad spots and allows directors and producers to review programs.

Volicon is a provider of enterprise media, intelligence, monitoring and compliance logging technology for broadcasters, networks, cable and IPTV operators.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Volicon has announced it has added a new storyboard capability to its Observer Media Intelligence Platform. Built in to the Observer’s Review application, the storyboard feature allows for easier identification, review, clipping and annotation of recorded content. Updates to the Review application’s media player and a new professional multiplayer display are also included.

Volicon Observer Media Intelligence Platform with Enhanced Storyboard Feature in Review Application

The Review application’s storyboard enables users to zoom in on narrow windows of time, selecting different thumbnails and scanning forward and back 4x, 8x, 16x, or 32x to identify a specific segment. A user can mark in and out points, select and crop a video frame, add comments or a description, and export the complete piece for sharing.

The new multiplayer display allows users to browse by channel name, set and view favorite channels, and access video based on time and date. Multiple channels can be displayed three ways, picture-in-picture, full-screen, or split-screen. A “sync to me” feature facilitates single-clicking syncing of all channels to a specific date and time. Navigation on the media player has also been updated.

Volicon is a provider of enterprise media intelligence, monitoring and compliance logging technology.

BURLINGTON, MASS.—Volicon has added new media monitoring capabilities to its Observer Media Intelligence Platform by incorporating dialogue analysis technology from Nexidia. The new technology allows the Observer to review thousands of hours of content for a particular word or phrase, then providing users with access to videos of each instance.

The Observer MIP provides continuous or scheduled logging of broadcast content across multiple channels and then makes media available for review and clipping on a browser-based interface. Nexidia technology then allows the system to use phonemes to convert text to sounds and then recognize the sounds in the recorded media. According to Volicon, the Nexidia technology indexes audio up to 50 times the speed of speech-to-text software.

Volicon is a provider of enterprise media intelligence, monitoring and compliance logging technology for broadcasters, networks, cable, IPTV operators and governments.

BURLINGTON, MASS. – Volicon has introduced a new accelerated VOD/OTT content generation workflow based on the Capture and Share applications for the company’s Observer Media Intelligence Platform. Broadcasters can use these applications to establish efficient content repurposing workflows, with frame accurate closed captioning support that serve both social and digital media platforms, as well as content management systems and online video platforms that support VOD/OTT services.

The Observer Media Intelligence Platform allows broadcasters to capture media in real-time from any source and with any metadata, such as closed captioning. The Capture and Share applications offer three ways to create content to provide a fast and simple edit workflow.

The first is a rapid manual approach, in which the user can review and edit content as it is captured using mark in and mark out controls to generate clips. In semi-automated and fully automated approaches, the platform uses program-related keywords and ad insertion signals to identify and clip all segments of an episode; these clips can then be combined into a single clip for VOD/OTT distribution. The Observer can also clip and push content directly to an edit or MAM system.

Distribution of the finished product is then sped up by the Observer Media Intelligence Platform with single-button publishing profiles to ensure programming is delivered in the appropriate format.

Volicon is a provider of media intelligence, monitoring and compliance logging technology for broadcasters, networks, cable and IPTV operators.

BURLINGTON, MASS. – Volicon has announced its new Distribution Monitoring system for end-to-end path monitoring for linear broadcast and OTT service delivery. Leveraging Volicon’s Media Intelligence Platform, the new system provides users with a unified compliance and monitoring interface for distributed content.

The Distribution Monitoring platform performs automated monitoring across the full distribution path and channel lineup, reducing the amount of operator intervention needed to identify and address issues with a channel. The platform only highlights channels experiencing a problem. By comparing signals across key points, the system can identify anomalies, track faults back up the distribution chain, and identify the source of the issue.

Able to capture a full recording of content, the system allows operators to target priority problems first and then used stored audio, video, and metadata to examine and deal with past or intermittent issues. Users can also rewind or pause live or recorded content.

Volicon’s multiviewer option for Media Intelligence Platform allows users to extend the monitoring multiple channels to the desktop or monitor wall. OTT-Cloud and OTT-Devices applications also help monitor signals being fed to the cloud and what’s being experience via the streaming media application on the user device.

Volicon is a provider of enterprise media intelligence systems for broadcasters, networks, cable operators and governments.

BURLINGTON, MASS. – To replace its aging video logging systems, Meredith Broadcast has gone with Volicon’s Observer TS monitoring and logging systems in 15 broadcast stations across the U.S. The Observer allows Meredith stations to monitor and log all content on a continuous basis for spot and quality verification, as well as to ensure compliance with the CALM Act and other FCC loudness regulations.

Meredith has updated all of its U.S. stations with the Observer TS system over the last few years. The system offers each station continuous logging of MPEG transport streams, monitors program quality of experience, and facilitates export and streaming of MPEG TS or low-resolution proxies for further review and competitive analysis.

The Observer also features loudness monitoring applications that allow operators to measure loudness levels of all commercials accurately and simultaneously, as well as the ability to burn measurements into the A/V asset for a clear affidavit. Additional features include integrated content recording and simultaneous surround and stereo downmix measurements.

The Massachusetts-based Volicon is a provider of enterprise media intelligence technology for broadcasters, networks, cable operators and governments.