With UHD, HEVC Developments, ATEME Boasts Big 2014 Growth

ATEME, a video delivery infrastructure provider, today announced record results for 2014 in terms of corporate growth, geographic expansion and revenue. ATEME recently released File and Live Ultra High-Definition (UHD) HEVC
encoder-transcoders with High Dynamic Range (HDR), and the 360-degree video
broadcast solutions with virtual reality applications.

ATEME increased annual revenues by 24% to €25.4 million over 2013 total annual sales of €20.6 million. 2014 marked its third year of consecutive growth continued with an increase of customers in the portfolio, where the largest customer represents 12.6% of revenues.

“We have a well-established, worldwide footprint and 2014 allowed us to solidify our base for growth,” says Michel Artières, CEO of ATEME. “We are now the trusted technology partner in video compression for 200 customers from around the world. We will continue with investment strategies to provide full, flexible software solutions and to become a more agile solutions provider.”

Contribution leadership continued with the expansion of EBU services and new leading customers including the BBC and key events powered by ATEME, such as the FIFA World Cup, further solidified ATEME’s contribution leadership. The company continues to develop and invest in the contribution low-latency, high video quality product line to maintain its leadership. New, ultra-low latency gen5 video quality engine enables higher video quality at a lower bitrate and supports contribution over open Internet.

File transcoding increased with TITAN File for STB VOD, OTT and archive applications as leading Hollywood studios, tier-1 service providers and post-production studios deployed it to master several UHD Hollywood blockbusters, scheduled for release in the near future. HEVC encoding speed boost improved the processing speed by up to five times with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).

Converged headend, live distribution solution continued to be adopted by major broadcasters and service providers worldwide, delivering outputs for main screen CBR, Statmux and OTT ABR, along with must-have features such as graphics overlay. ATEME’s unique approach to live distribution supports both low latency for sports and network channels and high density and high video quality for narrowcast channels. Recent product enhancement highlights includes a true hardware-agnostic software encoder and transcoder release and also includes support for HEVC UHD.

Innovation and pioneering research on leading-edge technologies continued to enhance video quality and new television formats. The company presented UHD-TV Phase 2 as part of the ongoing collaborative 4EVER project and added HDR support to products to ensure the enhanced viewing experience demanded by UHD-TV viewers, content providers in general, and the Hollywood studios in particular. In conjunction with partners, the company launched the world’s first live 360-degree broadcast with LiveSphere.

Ateme Hired industry veteran Yossi Aloni as chief marketing officer. Based in Silicon Valley, Aloni brings more than 20 years of broadcast experience to ATEME.  Prior to joining ATEME, Aloni held key management and marketing positions at Magnum, Optibase and MGM International.  Other key hires include Deborah Gallin as vice president of corporate marketing and Francois Cavalade as worldwide channel director.

The company also xpanded geographic coverage by increasing sales and support resources in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

ATEME nsured product and innovation leadership by increasing R&D resources at its Paris headquarters and a new R&D center in Rennes, France following the acquisition of the intellectual property of Emsytech, an audio software solutions company whose technology provides ATEME with a state-of-the-art audio-leveling engine and a new set of audio compression CODECs.

Perspectives for 2015: Solid Growth
As a leader in HEVC technology, ATEME is positioned to profit from soaring worldwide video consumption. Numerous announcements confirm this trend, in
particular the launch of new ultra high-definition/4K channels in Japan,
Russia and the United Kingdom in 2015.