Synamedia Hires Three Experts to Compression Technologies Team, Signs Deal With Hewlett Packard

Synamedia has made a boost to R&D investment in its compression technologies alongside a trio of senior appointments. In addition, the company has signed an OEM agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to use HPE ProLiant servers to power its solutions and further advance its video network portfolio.

R&D Investment
With the adoption of 4K-ready devices and new broadcasting standards such as ATSC 3.0 supporting 4K and ultimately 8K streams over-the-air, Synamedia’s investment in compression will meet the growing need for advanced encoding technologies to deliver stunning low latency live experiences while optimizing bandwidth.

Synamedia will focus on driving innovation in content-adaptive encoding including the use of neural networks. First previewed at IBC 2019, content-adaptive encoding uses automation and machine learning techniques and builds on Synamedia Digital Content Manager (DCM) with the Smart Rate Control for live ABR. Other initiatives will include new core video and audio algorithms, filtering noisy source content, and encoding optimization. With the goal of fully autonomous deployments in Synamedia’s sights, the analytics team will play a vital role in accelerating video network development by advancing the automation of video quality assessment and performance benchmarking.

Synamedia’s compression team is now led by Jan De Cock, who has joined as Director of Codec Development. Jan’s entire career has been in the compression space, most recently at Netflix where he was Manager of Video and Image Encoding for four years. Prior to this, Jan was Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and Information Systems at Ghent University in Belgium. He holds a PhD in Engineering, has authored dozens of academic papers on video compression, and holds patents in signal, image and video processing.

Also joining the video network business as Vice President of Services is John Hargrave, who was most recently CTO and COO at Zone·tv. With a specialism in software-as-a service, John spent four years at Ericsson as Vice President of Mediaroom Field Engineering then Vice President of Global Media Services. John also worked at Microsoft as General Manager for Mediaroom and at Telus as National Director of Professional Services.

Rounding out the new hires, David Baranski joins as Vice President of Sales for Video Network North America. Before his 18 months at Mediakind as VP of Sales for US Cable Operators, David spent six years with encoding specialist Envivio and then Ericsson, following its acquisition of Envivio in 2016. As VP of Sales for US cable operators at Ericsson, David headed up software compression and media delivery sales for the Americas.

As well as supporting established codecs including MPEG-2, AVC, and HEVC, Synamedia’s compression team is adding newer codecs such as AV1 and MPEG’s Versatile Video Coding codec (VVC). Last month, Synamedia joined the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) to advance open standards for media compression and delivery over the web using AV1, furthering Synamedia’s goal of enhancing OTT video streaming experiences at scale.

“These new hires are part of an initiative to accelerate customers’ journey to virtualized, software-based encoding for broadcast and OTT using DCM. Boosting our world-class team with such an experienced trio of video and compression experts will help us supercharge our ambitions and deliver top-notch solutions to customers faster,” said Julien Signes, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Video Network at Synamedia.

Hewlett Packard
This agreement will help customers optimize capital expenditure (CAPEX) with faster deployment, increased productivity, simplified operations, and enhanced end-to-end security.

Now more than ever before, broadcasters and content owners need to deliver more channels and higher video quality to remain competitive. To do so cost-effectively, they are seeking to transition from hardware appliances to software solutions, and do so with proven, trusted technology partners. Synamedia’s video network portfolio features a software-defined video network that delivers one of the industry’s broadest solutions sets – centered on reliability, more uptime, and increased density – to help operators fully virtualize their networks and move their workflows to full software running on any cloud.

“We are dedicated to partnering with companies that share our commitment to transforming the way the world is entertained and informed. This is why we’re thrilled to work with HPE, who has just been recognized by Gartner for its commitment to evolve IT infrastructure,” said Signes. “For scalability and channel availability, broadcasters, content owners and service providers must transition from hardware to software-based solutions, and they need to work with a partner who can manage the transition to a virtualized network, end-to-end, with reliability. Our portfolio and expertise offer the full package to help customers achieve this transformation, and working with a proven partner like HPE will help them get there quickly and securely.”

Synamedia’s software-defined video network in combination with its automation tools help customers scale up and down in public, private or hybrid cloud environments cost-effectively and efficiently, and launch 24/7 and/or pop-up channels on the infrastructure available. Its virtualized Digital Content Manager (DCM) offers exceptional video services for broadcasters, including live transcoding to multiple bit rates and formats, scalable video functions, best-in-class video quality, and an intuitive user interface. Additionally, its content delivery network (CDN) solution uniquely optimizes hardware provided by HPE to deliver the best combination of price and performance, with the ability to scale in minutes.

“As the consumption of digital media content continues to expand, and becomes a lifeline to many consumers given the current “shelter at home” environment, content providers need robust infrastructure to deliver continuous information and entertainment services to consumers,” said Phillip Cutrone, vice president and general manager, Worldwide OEM at HPE. “By combining HPE OEM ProLiant Gen 10 servers that extend industry-leading performance, security and versatility, with Synamedia’s software-defined video network solutions, TV and media network providers can quickly deploy reliable, scalable platforms with a focus on extending and delivering enhanced experiences to customers.”

Synamedia’s video network portfolio powers premium quality broadcast and broadband video for more than 1,000 operators worldwide and 100 million daily viewers. Its video distribution, processing, and delivery services and solutions create compelling live multi-screen experiences, enable software-defined video processing, and unify operations. The award-winning portfolio also touts a cloud-ready, converged broadcast and broadband end-to-end ATSC 3.0 offering and low latency solutions for live video. Its virtualized Digital Content Manager (DCM) features live transcoding to multiple bit rates and formats, scalable video functions, and best-in-class video quality all aimed to deliver infinite entertainment.