Mickey, ABC News Go E-l-e-m-e-n-t-a-l

Submitted by Sam on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 21:19

Today is an exciting day for everyone here at Elemental, and really, for anyone with a stake in the future of online and mobile video delivery. This morning we announced that Elemental has raised $7.5 million in Series B financing led by Steamboat Ventures, joined by our existing investors General Catalyst Partners and Voyager Capital.

Elemental Mickey Ears

So coming up on our fourth birthday, there are many reasons to toast the future:

1. Our new VC partners: Steamboat Ventures is the ideal fit for Elemental. As the venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, Steamboat Ventures invests in early- to mid-stage, technology-focused companies pursuing opportunities in emerging digital media and consumer technology markets. 

Scott Hilleboe, Managing Director at Steamboat, joins Elemental's board, bringing significant media experience and a Harvard MBA to the table. Besides Elemental, he is currently an investor in EdgeCast Networks, Kyte, MediaBank, and MerchantCircle. Scott’s prior investments include Quigo (acquired by AOL), Fastclick (acquired by ValueClick), and PopularMedia (acquired by StrongMail).

2. Working on cutting edge customer applications: Just last week, ABC News launched its newest app for the iPad. Featuring the iconic ABC News globe as a whole new way to interact with and experience the news, it is already the most popular app in the iPad App Store (as of yesterday), and has been featured on Good Morning America.

ABC News iPad appElemental Server is being used to encode all the video being distributed in the app, and from what we've heard, the ABC team has been seeing 5x faster performance than their existing video infrastructure. At this rate, my kids will bypass the remote and go straight to flicking through their favorite shows with a touch of their finger!

3. Expanding horizons for video (everywhere): As soon as you close a round of funding the inevitable question is, "What are you doing with the money?" I've been telling people, "the same thing we always do: invest wisely and focus on first-class service for our customers." Elemental’s unique technology is perfectly suited to help content owners and distributors efficiently process video for delivery to an ever-expanding array of viewing platforms and devices.

While up until now we’ve primarily focused on North America customers like CBS Interactive, News-Press & Gazette and ABC News, we intend to expand our business to international markets in the coming quarters with our Elemental Live and Elemental Server solutions. To this end, this year will be the first time we have our own stand at the International Broadcasters Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam (Booth 13.C25). If you are going to be at the show, drop us a line!

We’ve got a long way to go, but having Steamboat at our side will make navigating the choppy waters of building a great company a little smoother.

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From Pitch Blue to a Clear Rearview

Submitted by Whitney on Fri, 07/09/2010 - 11:40

Deserting the satellite

TVs are everywhere. They are commonly spotted at bus stops, gas stations, in airports, in banks, in grocery stores—the list goes on. According to Nielsen Media Research, there are more televisions in the average household than there are people. TV has rapidly progressed since its introduction into people’s living rooms in the 1940s from black and white to color, from rabbit ears to cable/ satellite/IPTV, and now to HD and DVRs, and eventually to 3D.

As TV technology booms, broadcasters must stay in sync with current means of content delivery. Networks long ago deserted the antiquated method of delivering video on reels of tape, advanced to satellite delivery and recently developed new systems like Pitch BlueTM to automate delivery of syndicated content via satellite. Automated delivery of video creates major efficiencies in the workflows of television broadcasters.  However, many broadcasters transitioning to Pitch Blue are unable to immediately experience benefits of the new video delivery system because they often face difficulties transcoding Pitch Blues files for play-out.

News-Press & Gazette (NPG), an American broadcasting company, is currently transitioning to the Pitch Blue file delivery system at many of its television stations, including KTVZ in Bend, Ore., and KESQ in Palm Springs, Calif. NPG's Director of Technical Operations, Jim DeChant, looks for transcoding solutions to improve the speed and efficiency of his video broadcasting operations.  Huge volumes of programming are delivered across multiple facilities and millions of minutes are wasted each year by time consuming video file conversions.  It can take up to 40 minutes to transcode a single hour program from Pitch Blue HD files.  “Real time is just not enough time anymore,” said David Montgomery, operations director at KTVZ.

According to the Big Broadcast Survery 2010, "The top three trends indicate that the broadcast industry is focused on unlocking new revenue streams and creating operational efficiencies while it continues its transition to HTDV operations."

NPG is implementing Elemental Server, a massively parallel, faster-than-real-time transcoding appliance into its workflow and is experiencing positive results.  To read the full story about how NPG has integrated the Elemental Server video processing solution into its daily operations, please read our case study.

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