NAB 2011: Telestream Expands Vantage with New ‘Enterprise’ Offerings

At NAB 2011, Telestream will unveil Vantage Enterprise, an expanded version its Vantage software platform that offers a high level of visibility and control and integrates technology from recently acquired Anystream.

Telestream’s Vantage server-based software workflow products automate content ingest, video file interoperability, multi-channel distribution, and other video production workflows for content owners and creators, broadcast, cable, and new media companies. Telestream acquired Anystream, a video production and management solutions provider, in August 2010.

“Vantage Enterprise system management products are the first major development to evolve from our acquisition of Anystream last year which brought together the best of both companies,” says Barbara DeHart, VP of Marketing at Telestream. “Vantage now combines Anystream’s proven expertise in large-scale media production and system management with Telestream’s market-leading video transcoding and workflow products to enable companies to capture new markets and optimize video content value.”

Vantage workflow products unify video capture, transcoding, analysis, metadata processing, delivery and notification into a single workflow framework. Vantage automates workflows that include solutions from multiple vendors and provides the ability to unify these solutions into managed, real-time decision-based, video workflows. Vantage Enterprise system management products are available in two configurations that enable scalable, predictable, and resilient workflow environments.

Vantage Enterprise Control
Vantage Enterprise Control is a workflow management layer and suite of tools that maximizes workflow capacity, resiliency, throughput and reliability for large-scale or mission-critical applications. Vantage Enterprise Control includes Vantage Array capability for binding Vantage workflow products together, and also provides:

Vantage Enterprise’s Customizable load-balancing enables more efficient hardware utilization, dynamically employing the best resources available, adapting to fluctuations in processing or media loads, and enabling a smaller server footprint. Doing more with fewer servers means less hardware, rack space, power and cooling is required, plus less chance for failure, and the ability to recover more efficiently. Fully redundant failover of all systems and services ensures that any node can perform any service at any time. User-configurable automated task retry and failover enables greater reliability, workflow predictability, and reduced overhead for recovery from environmental failures. A Team Manager allows users to create custom web job status views, and the ability to manage multiple internal clients and groups across the enterprise with user access control to Vantage. Workflow analytics display real-time and historical workflow execution, allowing for bottleneck analysis, workflow optimization and tracking of batch jobs throughout the process.

Vantage Master Control
Vantage Master Control is a higher-tier workflow management layer that adds visibility and management of complex video workflows and allows a unified ecosystem for multi-vendor products with centralized process control and monitoring. Vantage Master Control includes all the capabilities of Vantage Enterprise Control as well as additional features.

The System Dashboard provides browser-based graphical visibility of system status, health and performance, and allows easy local or remote visual monitoring of system health. User-configurable job history reporting provides report generation for billing, system utilization, and capacity planning. Third-party monitoring and control provides support for Vantage workflow products, as well as other products, including Agility and other Telestream and third-party products in the future.

Additional Vantage Developments
A bridge between Vantage and Agility 2G is also being unveiled at NAB. Vantage LCS offers Agility 2G customers a bridge to Vantage, making the capabilities of Vantage available within an Agility 2G-controlled environment. Vantage LCS allows Agility 2G customers to take advantage of Vantage transcoding, automated analysis and decision-making, automated QC, and visual workflow design.

New features being unveiled at the NAB Show for Vantage workflow products include support for the ever-growing number of video and audio formats, wrappers and systems. Adaptive Streaming encoding support plus industry-first Apple ProRes encoding support is now available for Windows Server OS workflows. Enhanced professional system format support includes Leitch IMX encoding, Omneon QuickTime IMX encoding, Ikegami GF camera MXF file decoding, creation of QuickTime files with XDCAM HD video, QuickTime 608 and 708 caption encoding and decoding, plus EVS DNxHD and DVCProHD. Additional Avid support includes Avid Interplay 2.3 for Send to Playback and Transfer Engine, AVC-Intra video support for Transfer Engine, and native generation of AAF and OpAtom MXF files.

Additional U.S. broadcast regulatory compliance features in Vantage workflow products include 608 to 708 up-conversion, generation of SCC files and timed text XML files from incoming content, EBU R-128 audio analysis, AFD analysis and caption analysis. New Vantage Analysis capabilities include frame accurate calculation of content duration for all supported input file types, and aspect ratio flag detection from headers in MXF, QuickTime, GXF, LXF, plus Program Stream and Transport Stream file types.

Vantage Enterprise system management products and other new features will be available from Telestream’s worldwide network of direct sales and distributors in June 2011.

Pipeline 2.5
Telestream will also demo the newly released version 2.5 for its Pipeline video capture systems. According to Telestream, Pipeline is an industry-first network-based video capture and playout device for moving HD and SD video in and out of file-based workflows.

Pipeline version 2.5 capabilities include immediate access to media for editing while it is being captured into Avid workflows, as well as a new Controlled Playout interface that turns Pipeline into a virtual VTR. Additional new features provide support for DVCPRO 50 and ProRes LT/Proxy formats plus automated ingest of baseband video and metadata into Telestream Vantage workflows. The new features allow for more flexibility and control of video capture and playout for broadcasters and post-productions houses.

“This release continues to extend the power of Pipeline systems beyond simple video capture and playout by offering a more flexible and efficient alternative to conventional video capture solutions,” says DeHart. “For example, the new Pipeline Controlled Playout interface allows broadcasters, production houses and post-production shops to play back captured files to a monitor for review and approval or quality assurance with full VTR control, just like a tape deck.”

Pipeline Controlled Playout provides VTR-like video play out control using standard RS-422, manual control, or a custom application developed using Pipeline’s Web Service API. Play out can be remotely controlled through RS422 from an automation system or an edit control device, a third-party application using the Web API, or manually from the Pipeline Control software. In addition, all Pipeline play out interfaces now support industry-standard MXF OP1a, enabling Pipeline to play out files made by nearly any professional video system.

Telestream continues to expand format choices by adding video capture and playout support for DVCPRO 50 and ProRes LT/Proxy. A new Video Wall feature expands visibility beyond the current session stream by allowing users to monitor all individual capture sessions in one Pipeline interface screen.

Pipeline 2.5 expands support for Avid editing workflows with the addition of Avid Interplay asset check in. This allows video to be accessed immediately, enabling live events and breaking news to be edited in Avid while they are being captured – rather than waiting until the complete file arrives.

Additionally, a new Vantage plug-in provides direct, one-step, automated integration with Telestream’s enterprise-class Vantage workflow design, automation and management software. This new feature allows seamless submission of baseband video, audio and metadata from tape or live sources into Vantage workflows.

Unlike traditional capture cards on dedicated workstations, Pipeline is the only shared network encoder on the market that allows access by anyone connected to the network. Pipeline offers real-time encoding to multiple formats from a single box, providing flexibility in multiformat environments for Mac and PC users. Pipeline is scalable to an unlimited number of channels, providing a cost-effective alternative to professional tape decks or video server channels for multi-channel ingest into file-based workflows.

Pipeline is now available as a free software update.