Thomson Broadens Technicolor Business with SyncCast Deal
Online-Video-Distribution Company Joins Conglomerate’s Technicolor Content-Services Business
By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/4/2007 1:43:00 PM
French conglomerate Thomson expanded its Technicolor content-services business by acquiring SyncCast, an Anaheim, Calif.-based company specializing in online-video distribution.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Thomson said the SyncCast acquisition is consistent with its "integrated-services strategy," designed to provide one-stop service offerings to media, entertainment and communications companies ranging from initial content preparation to consumer or enterprise digital delivery.
Among those offerings is MIDAS (Media Ingest, Distribution and Storage), a new software and hardware platform supporting digital-content preparation; storage; security; distribution; and integrating asset-management systems, production and billing systems, workflow-automation systems and production networks. MIDAS includes a secure global private network for file delivery, streaming and collaboration with key clients and between all of Thomson's post-production locations.
SyncCast -- which counts Microsoft's Xbox Live video-download service and Wal-Mart's music-download store as customers -- provides outsourced application-delivery-network and digital-media services, mainly over Internet-protocol networks.
The company -- now part of Thomson's Burbank, Calif.-based Technicolor unit -- offers complete end-to-end delivery solutions including content preparation and publishing; content delivery optimization; complex digital-rights management; back-end integration with billing and payment platforms; and services for storing, managing, securing and reporting the consumption of digital content.
"Establishing an integrated services strategy to guide our technology developments and future investments is key to Thomson's global expansion of electronic-production and distribution services," said Lanny Raimondo, senior executive vice president of Thomson's Technicolor services division, in a statement. "With this strategy, we will support media, entertainment and communications companies in creating, managing and distributing content with greater efficiency, reliability and security across a wide variety of new and existing platforms."
