Harmonic Adds Multiscreen Stream Packaging to VOS Platform #IBC2014

Harmonic has announced a number of improvements to its VOS software-based media processing platform, including new multiscreen packaging and origination capabilities.

Designed to unify the entire broadcast and multiscreen media processing chain, the improvements to VOS will allow packaging-on-the-fly and low-latency origin server functionalities, the company reports.

The upgrades also will support a wide range of broadcast-quality captioning and subtitling, ad insertion, and blackout support for live, VOD and time-shift services.

The company also announced that Sky Italia has become one of the first companies to deploy the VOS platform, which was first announced NAB.

"In today's fast-paced, constantly evolving multiscreen world, the survival of service providers depends on their ability to launch new services ahead of the competition," said Massimo Bertolotti, head of innovation and multimedia distribution, Sky Italia. "Harmonic's VOS media processing platform with transcoding and stream packaging capabilities dramatically reduces our costs and complexity by consolidating the number of discrete appliances required to produce and deliver high-quality multiscreen video content, while providing us with the scalability to grow. We now have the agility to launch additional channels and services faster and cheaper with amazing video quality."