Digital Rapids Bolsters Support for Microsoft Silverlight

Digital Rapids a developer of scalable solutions for media ingest, encoding,
transcoding, protection, streaming and delivery has joined the Microsoft Silverlight Partner Initiative. Digital Rapids
also announced immediate support for Microsoft Silverlight in Digital Rapids’
award-winning encoding, transcoding and streaming solutions.

The Silverlight cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in is
designed to deliver a new level of rich media experiences and interactive
applications on the web. With a media foundation compatible with the SMPTE VC-1
video compression format, Silverlight extends the reach of VC-1 and Microsoft
Windows Media Video-based content with robust interactive experiences viewable
across multiple operating systems. Through the advanced publishing capabilities
of the Digital Rapids Stream software, Digital Rapids encoding, transcoding and
streaming solutions — including StreamZ and StreamZHD media encoding servers,
DRC-Stream board-and-software bundles and Digital Rapids Transcode Manager
distributed media transcoding software — support automated publishing of media
content into customized Silverlight templates.

“Support for Microsoft Silverlight in our solutions
enables powerful and efficient workflow automation from ingest through encoding
and publishing to the Web,” said Mike Nann, Director of
Marketing/Communications at Digital Rapids Corporation. “Silverlight
support is a key evolution of our long-standing VC-1 and Windows Media support,
and being a part of the Silverlight Partner Initiative will provide us with
numerous benefits as we continue to add new Silverlight-related features based
on the needs of our customers.”

“We are very pleased to have Digital Rapids join the
Silverlight Partner Initiative,” said Steve Sklepowich, group product
manager for Silverlight Media at Microsoft Corp. “Digital Rapids hardware
and software solutions offer Silverlight support in a complete, automated
workflow, enabling users to easily create content for Silverlight-powered
interactive media experiences within their existing production processes. We
look forward to working closely with Digital Rapids to bring the advantages of
Silverlight to leading broadcast networks, studios and content providers.”

Digital Rapids Stream encoding solutions combine powerful
hardware for video and audio capture and pre-processing with the intuitive
Stream software interface, delivering reliable, high-quality, multi-format
media encoding and streaming for reaching the rapidly evolving of range of
network-enabled platforms and devices that are defining the future of digital
video. The advanced, hardware-based video processing features enable superior
quality and the most efficient use of bandwidth in the compressed result. Digital
Rapids Transcode Manager provides automated, distributed transcoding with
centralized management and exceptional load balancing intelligence for
high-volume, multi-format workflows, increasing production volume while
reducing operational costs. The complete line of Digital Rapids products will be
showcased at the NAB Show 2008 in booth number SL8724, April 14-17 in
Las Vegas.