Grass Valley Partners with Elemental Technologies on Viacom Multiplatform Solution

Grass Valley is partnering with Elemental Technologies to provide a multiplatform solution for Viacom International Media Networks to deliver and manage content across its traditional and new media platforms. The project is expected to be live by the end of 2013.

The solution includes implementation of over 200 Grass Valley K2 Edge playout nodes which will enable Viacom to manage its channels in a streamlined and efficient manner with minimal resources. The GV Edge Integrated Playout System will integrate with Elemental Live video processing systems through a direct IP link, to distribute content to Viacom customers via streaming media. Traditional television channels along with new streamed channels can be controlled by the GV Edge system without any need for a change to Viacom’s operational process. Viacom will also be extending its use of GV Edge to develop a disaster recovery solution in Europe.

“The explosion of available content and the customer appetite for watching it means that as a media company, Viacom is always looking for ways to add new content and to manage it efficiently,” says David Kline, Senior Vice President of Technology and CIO at Viacom. “The integrated nature of GV Edge means we can oversee our channels; including content which streams live via the internet, through one platform. It’s this type of efficiency and cost-effectiveness that we look for in our production solutions.”

The strength of GV Edge lies in the way it seamlessly integrates several components for a full playout service. The file-based software solution includes tools to enable media asset management, playout control, and sophisticated graphics looks. Based on an optimized IT architecture and infrastructure, GV Edge is flexible, scalable and offers users an extremely cost-efficient way of managing many channels at once. The solution will allow Viacom to migrate its services to HD as required.

Elemental Live features a software-based architecture that can incorporate new compression codecs and video formats much more quickly than hardware-based approaches for high-efficiency video coding. Elemental Live is designed to integrate seamlessly into end-to-end workflows with solutions from partners such as Grass Valley, which eliminates configuration complexity and optimizes multiscreen video delivery for customers.

“We have been working with Viacom for over a decade and it’s an absolute pleasure to help it to launch and manage multiplatform channels simply and quickly,” says Charlie Dunn, Senior Vice President, Global Customer Solutions at Grass Valley. “We believe that the combination of our GV Edge solution with Elemental’s advanced video processing technology is a really powerful one because it allows broadcasters to launch new streamed channels alongside traditional broadcast services easily. We look forward to Viacom’s viewers enjoying more choice of content than ever before.”

Keith Wymbs, VP of Marketing for Elemental comments: “The combination of Grass Valley and Elemental solutions is useful for anyone launching OTT or TV Everywhere services in tandem with support for traditional broadcast services. We are really excited about the launch of Viacom’s streaming media channels.”