Live Cloud Transcoding API removes barriers to multi-screen live streaming
BOSTON, March 26, 2013 - Brightcove (NASDAQ: BCOV), a leading global provider of cloud content services, today announced the general availability of the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service. Live Cloud Transcoding is an open API for live video encoding in the cloud, which allows content providers to instantly scale live encoding resources and produce adaptive bitrate streams without significant investments in on-premise hardware.
"Live Cloud Transcoding is changing how organizations approach live video, from startups to major broadcasters," said Jon Dahl, vice president of encoding services at Brightcove. "By offering live transcoding as a simple, scalable API, we are able to change the economics of live events. This will help bring all sorts of new content online, and content providers of all types will benefit from drastically lower capital expenditures and operational requirements for live programming."
The Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, or Bassmaster, is a fishing membership organization that boasts more than half a million members; the organization has been utilizing Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding to support its tournament live stream efforts.
"The Bassmaster organization runs roughly 34 bass fishing tournaments in a single year, all across the country, and there is tremendous demand from fans to have the ability to watch weigh-ins live online," said Jim Sexton, vice president of digital, B.A.S.S. "We have relied upon encoding hardware for live streaming, but the technology would not allow us to stream to iOS devices—including iPads and iPhones. We were thrilled to take advantage of the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service in beta; it has empowered us to deliver high-quality live video content to all of our fans regardless of the mobile device they use, without having to worry about additional hardware investment. Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding has undoubtedly helped us grow our mobile audience, a critical endeavor for any company."
Content providers face a number of challenges when transcoding for live events. First, they need to buy, manage and configure expensive transcoding hardware. When an event is over, that gear sits idle until the next live event. Moreover, uplink bandwidth at the event site can be a bottleneck, limiting the ability to publish adaptive bitrate streams, or dramatically increasing the cost of an event to secure outbound bandwidth. The expense and operational difficulty inherent in scaling and operating these solutions is multiplied as the number of output streams and formats increase and as the number of simultaneous events increase.
The Live Cloud Transcoding API greatly reduces the complexity and upfront costs of live stream transcoding. Content providers have on-demand access to encoding resources, and pay on a metered basis only for the transcoding resources they use. With Live Cloud Transcoding, content providers can use a lightweight encoder on a laptop to send a single RTMP stream to the service, and create adaptive bitrate HLS and RTMP streams to provide viewers with a high-quality viewing experience on any device.
Smartcom:tv relied upon the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service for live streaming of the annual event Finnmarksløpet--a popular dog sled race held in the most northern part of Norway that spans an entire week and is comprised of grueling challenges in the snow and cold that viewers were able to watch online at no cost.
"The flexibility provided by the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service allowed Smartcom:tv to bring only one high-performing encoding unit to the streaming location, stream in the highest quality available through that single Internet connection and let the Zencoder service do all of the hard work," said Tore Nergaard, managing director at Smartcom:tv. “We were able to stream six different video streams from a remote location without needing a broadband connection. At the same time, we greatly reduced our hardware investments for the encoding setup on location. Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding was a game-changer for this event."
Pricing & Availability
Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding is now generally available worldwide. Live Cloud Transcoding is priced based on the duration of the input and output video streams, quality and volume--starting at just $10 per hour. Month-to-month plans with usage-based discounts and annual plans with greater volume discounts are available.
The service will accept input streams from leading software encoders such as Flash Media Live Encoder, XSplit, OBS and Wirecast, as well as popular commercially available hardware encoders such as Elemental. At launch, Live Cloud Transcoding will support RTMP and HLS outputs. RTMP delivery is supported using media servers such as Flash Media Server and Wowza, and RTMP servers on the Akamai, Edgecast and Limelight content delivery networks. Streams using the HLS protocol can be delivered using standard HTTP servers or CDNs.
For more information and to sign up for a free Zencoder account visit www.zencoder.com. Brightcove will also be showcasing the Zencoder Live Cloud Transcoding service at the 2013 NAB Show; visit booth #SU11014 for a live demo.
About Brightcove
Brightcove Inc. (NASDAQ: BCOV), a leading global provider of cloud content services, offers a family of products used to publish and distribute the world's professional digital media. The company's products include Video Cloud, the market-leading online video platform and Zencoder, a leading cloud-based media processing service and HTML5 video player technology provider. Brightcove has more than 6,350 customers in over 60 countries that rely on Brightcove cloud content services to build and operate media experiences across PCs, smartphones, tablets and connected TVs. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.
Press Contacts
North America
Lisa Langsdorf
SutherlandGold Group for Brightcove
212-905-6218
llangsdorf@sutherlandgold.com
Europe
Sheena Riviera
AxiCom for Brightcove
+44 20 8392 4064
sheena.riviera@axicom.com
This press release may include forward-looking statements regarding anticipated objectives, growth and/or expected product and service developments or enhancements. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of the following words (among others): "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "plan," "should" or "anticipates," or comparable words and their negatives. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees but are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations contained in these statements. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Brightcove assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in the event of changing circumstances or otherwise, and such statements are current only as of the date they are made.