Harmonic announced that a full range of its IP-based stream processing, transcoding, media server and storage solutions has been selected by SCOLA, a non-profit, global educational TV broadcaster based in McClelland, IA. The products will be used to power its satellite distribution and Internet service expansion.
The new solution, supplied by local reseller and integrator partners Foundation Telecommunications Inc. (FTI) and TBC Integration, will improve SCOLA’s broadcast video quality, decrease satellite bandwidth usage up to 50 percent and triple the amount of VOD formats supported on SCOLA’s website.
To enhance the picture quality, workflow and multiview channel capabilities for SCOLA, FTI and TBC Integration will deploy an array of integrated Harmonic video infrastructure solutions, including Electra 8000 encoders, ProStream stream processors and real-time multiscreen transcoders, Omneon Spectrum MediaCenter media servers, and a file-based ProMedia Carbon automated transcoding farm.
Electra 8000 encoders provide SCOLA with SD/HD MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC encoding, as well as integrated statistical multiplexing. The architecture of the Electra 8000 features up to four channels in a single rack unit (1RU), significantly reducing operational costs for SCOLA with its high density and power efficiency. SCOLA will use the ProStream 1000 stream processing platform for bulk scrambling and the multichannel Spectrum MediaCenter for media server and content storage functions.
The ProStream 4000 real-time multiscreen transcoder is optimized for adaptive streaming applications, enabling SCOLA to meet growing demand for OTT and mobile TV services. File-based transcoding is provided by the Rhozet-powered ProMedia Carbon, which is being deployed in an enterprise-class, automated transcoding farm controlled by the Harmonic Workflow System (WFS).
SCOLA will also use IRIS software for quality of service monitoring and NMX Digital Service Manager for easy configuration, control and monitoring of Harmonic and third-party video network elements.
