Adds Tiered Asset Management to its MediaHawk Video Servers
Concurrent says it has successfully integrated its Myriad line of advance advertising products with systems from BIAP, Invidi and This Technology, in order to develop advanced advertising solutions based on the SCTE-130 and EBIF standards. The four companies, which are currently working on solutions that enable such advanced advertising functionality as targeted VOD ad insertion, bumpering, telescoping and reporting, say that over the coming year they will collaborate on product interoperability and integration, and pursue joint marketing initiatives, including interoperability demonstrations at industry trade shows and summits. "We are excited to be working with these three companies," Concurrent's recently appointed chief marketing officer, David King, said in a prepared statement. "The product lines for all four companies are complementary; this collaboration will allow all to broaden their product portfolios with applications built on the latest in SCTE standards, while pursuing the goals of the industry in regards to advanced advertising. The next generation of fully integrated advertising business models presents many technological challenges. The creation of an alliance that promises to develop an advanced advertising ecosystem may be just the thing needed to accelerate the industry into this new territory."
Concurrent says that it has drawn on what it terms its "extensive expertise" in cross-medium data collection, management and analytics to integrate its targeted advertising solutions and video server technology with BIAP's ETV/EBIF interactive advanced advertising platforms. The company says that its products have also been successfully tested with SCTE 130-compliant products from Invidi, and with This Technology's advertising supply management solutions, MetaMore and Spotbuilder.
In other Concurrent news: The company says it has added tiered asset management (TAM) as part of a major software release for its MediaHawk line of streaming video servers. According to the company, TAM was developed in order to accommodate multi-tier storage architectures, such as those deployed at the Tampa and Orlando divisions of Bright House Networks, and takes into account the performance characteristics of the available storage when making content-placement decisions.
With the introduction of high-performance storage, such as solid state drives, and lower-cost media, such as SATA drives, it is increasingly important, Concurrent says, for the system to prioritize placement based on the usage profile for each content asset, as well as the I/O bandwidth rates for each media type. "The addition of TAM provides another level of flexibility and scalability to our MediaHawk Content Delivery System," James Brickmeier, Concurrent's VP of product line management, said in a prepared statement. "This latest technological enhancement to an already-proven platform ensures that our customers can add new technology, such as our MediaCache 1000 solid state arrays, to existing complexes and make the best use of its unique performance capabilities. As we migrate towards regional and national VOD architectures, with ever-increasing storage requirements, intelligent management of content will be essential to keep storage costs low and maintain a high quality of service."
TAM was developed as part of Concurrent's ongoing relationship with Bright House Networks, which sees the company supporting the latter's Start Over deployments. According to Concurrent, Bright House's Tampa system has what is currently the largest Start Over deployment in the world, and used Concurrent's MediaHawk platform to launch the service last January. "From the beginning, Concurrent was an integral part of the development of Start Over," Jeff Chen, Bright House's SVP of advanced technology, said in a prepared statement. "The TAM enhancement brings a new level of efficiency to the product and allows us to proactively address customer viewing needs."
According to Concurrent, TAM will be available in the first quarter of 2009 for all MediaHawk 4500 and 4000 models upgraded with the applicable software release.
