NAB 2018: TVU Networks To Showcase Line of HEVC Solutions, Debut Contribution Automation Solution
At NAB 2018, TVU Networks (Booth C1707) will demonstrate its commitment to providing customers with efficient technologies by showcasing its lineup of solutions that offer software-based HEVC encoding. Providing high-quality video with improved compression efficiency, TVU’s HEVC supported products now include the TVU One mobile IP newsgathering transmitter, TVU MLink/MLink 4K encoding solution, TVU Anywhere mobile transmitter app and the TVU Grid live video switching, routing, and distribution system.
“We are constantly looking for ways to help our customers reduce their video production costs while allowing them to deliver the best live shot regardless of the transmission environment. We address this with the integration of HEVC into our entire line of transmission solutions, allowing our customers achieve much great efficiency, “ says Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “In addition, our HEVC transmission solutions incorporate distinct software technology advantages with our proprietary Inverse StatMux Plus (IS+) transmission algorithm, and the ability to deliver low latency during fast bit-rate changes to ensure a reliable and high-quality picture in a challenging transmission environment.”
When accessing a public Internet connection, especially mobile Internet, the availability of bandwidth is constantly changing. TVU’s patented Variable Bitrate Encoding technology enables a TVU transmitter to adapt the video encoding bitrate to the available bandwidth of the network. In a mobile Internet environment, bandwidth fluctuations change fast and often. TVU’s software-based encoder is designed to react to bitrate changes within a single frame time, ensuring that the live video is transmitted with the best picture quality and without any interruption caused by bandwidth fluctuation.
Furthermore, the TVU software-based encoder is optimized to the transmission environment. In contrast, most commoditized hardware encoder chips are not able to be easily adapted to the specific environment often demanded by mobile transmission. For example, TVU combines a software-based HEVC encoder with TVU’s industry-leading IS+ transmission technology, providing an extremely efficient and robust solution for transmission in hostile environments.
With a software encoder, TVU can continuously improve the encoding technology as it has done in the past with its H.264 devices. A customer can purchase TVU hardware today with the knowledge that their TVU equipment will continue to improve with newer technology through a software upgrade.
TVU Grid, the world’s largest IP-based distribution network, will also be upgraded to HEVC. With HEVC, major media companies are able to exchange content with their partners at an even lower cost on bandwidth.
TVU Grid v5.0 also features TVU Grid Market, which gives users the ability to exchange, share, and sell video content using the solution’s infrastructure. TVU will also demo the TVU One with HEVC mobile newsgathering transmitter at NAB 2018, which delivers dependable HD quality video with half-second latency within an ultra-compact and rugged hardware chassis. Additionally, the TVU MLink TE4500 HEVC and 4K rack-mount encoder will be shown – which provides cellular 4G LTE transmission capabilities to satellite and microwave vehicles, vans and trucks.
Contribution Automation Service Streamlines the Video Content Acquisition Process
Also at NAB, TVU Networks will introduce TVU Contribution Automation Solution (TVU CAS), a service which automates planning, resource management, acquisition, transmission and routing, and also features integrated metadata and contribution management. Furthermore, TVU also provides an open API (TVU CASAPI) for acquisition devices, transmission devices, receiving devices and routers as well as news systems to be integrated into TVU CAS.
As demand increases for more live content for news, sports and entertainment, and fast production process in general, streamlining the live video content acquisition and processing of live video content is becoming a necessity for most media organizations, such as TV stations. TVU CAS is able to have the entire acquisition process planned at story creation stage. The resources, such as people, devices and routing are assigned to story and tasks. In addition, all assignments are pushed to field devices, and the personnel who are involved. It will automatically execute the planned tasks according to the plan. Metadata, such as story slug, and information are automatically captured and associated with the corresponding content without human involvement.
“The existing human-driven content acquisition process is inefficient for the increased demand for production efficiency. TVU CAS addresses today’s production needs because it focuses on people and stories rather than machines and manual process,” says Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “The entire content acquisition process becomes streamlined and more efficient with TVU CAS and allows the focus to shift from a rigid program centric to a flexible story centric workflow.”
