Telestream Expands Workflow Automation Solutions and Partnerships at NAB2006

Las Vegas (National Association of Broadcasters Convention), April 24, 2006 – Telestream®, the leading provider of multi-format, multi-vendor, file-based workflow solutions, arrives at this week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention with major new products and key new partnerships that automate workflows for a rapidly changing world of media everywhere. These new products provide simpler, more efficient ways for content owners, aggregators and distributors to brand, transform and repurpose media for multiple distribution channels. Additionally, new Flip4Mac products offer more ways to transfer media files into Apple Final Cut Pro from professional media systems.

“As broadcasters and media companies transition to file-based workflows, HD and multi-format distribution platforms, Telestream provides enormous value by automating these workflows to enable increased efficiency and profitability,” said David Heppe, President/COO of Telestream. “Our leadership position continues to grow as is evidenced by our adoption by most of the world’s largest media companies, selection as the transcode engine of choice by a large and growing number of industry partners, and growth of our Flip4Mac products to more than a million users in less than six months.”

New Products
GraphicsFactory™ is an innovative new software solution that automates graphics assembly in file-based workflows. A build once, apply to many model offers a faster, more efficient means to personalize media, add promos, brand, and localize media for a variety of high-volume distribution requirements.

FlipFactory continues to build on its industry-leading technology for automating transcoding-based media workflows. New FlipFactory Mobile automates high-volume media encoding for content owners, aggregators, and distributors facing the challenge of repurposing media for rapidly evolving distribution platforms.

“With Telestream’s FlipFactory Mobile workflow solution, we’re able to quickly and efficiently receive media files from multiple sources and automatically convert them to the right format and bit-rate for various distribution channels,” said Ian Blaine, co-founder and CEO of thePlatform, a key new Telestream partner. “FlipFactory has proven to be reliable even when our Media Publishing System is processing the highest volumes of traffic.”

Companies such as thePlatform have evolved out of the need to provide intermediary services between content owners and distributors who now repurpose content for multiple new media distribution platforms. thePlatform is uniquely positioned to aggregate and manage the distribution of content to the rapidly expanding mobile market.

Telestream also introduces FactoryArray, a new 24/7 job management option for its workflow automation products. FactoryArray extends the power of any FlipFactory or GraphicsFactory product from a single server to an array of servers working together to process jobs in the most efficient and secure manner possible.

FlipFactory V5.0 enhancements slated for June availability include new support for Autodesk and expanded support for Apple production systems. With these latest additions, the FlipFactory family continues to stay at the forefront of the industry, providing the most extensive file format support for HD, mobile and everything in between.

Flip4Mac Pro series expands to include support for Grass Valley™ Infinity Series™ line of IT-immersed products for electronic newsgathering and field production. The Flip4Mac Infinity Component provides file compatibility and ingest into Final Cut Pro systems for editing. Telestream also announced participation in the Grass Valley Infinity Open Alliance Partners (OAP) initiative to create tight integration between Infinity Series and its Flip4Mac and FlipFactory workflow automation solutions.

Partnerships at NAB2006
Working closely with many partners is a critical part of Telestream’s business. The company actively works with more than 100 partner companies addressing complex multi-vendor workflows. This is exemplified by 27 partners demonstrating Telestream with their solutions at NAB. In addition, products from more than 20 partner companies are present in Telestream’s booth, where they are integrated into workflow solutions that include: broadcast, cable, news, commercials, HD, VOD, mobile, graphics, media collaboration, and more.

Telestream's file format expertise and strong developer program have firmly entrenched FlipFactory as the video transcode engine of choice by virtually all of the leading Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendors in the industry.  At NAB, Telestream is integrated into the following DAM workflows: Ancept, BrighTech/Microboards, Clear Story Systems, EMC/Documentum, Harris Corp., OpenText/Artesia, Pictron and Sundance Digital.

Four of the world's leading IT companies are featuring architectures at NAB that enable multi-vendor media workflow solutions. These Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) simplify design and deployment of these system solutions to enable exchange and control of media and metadata.  Hewlett Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun have all chosen FlipFactory to automate ingest, enable media exchange with edit systems and broadcast servers, and to repurpose content for distribution.

Storage and archive partners integrating Telestream into their NAB demonstrations are: ADIC, Front Porch Digital and GVS.  ADIC, with its StorNext archive solution, is akey new partnership for Telestream. The combined FlipFactory/StorNext integration provides seamless access to Apple’s Xsan storage area network, providing a fast, efficient workflow.

Increasingly the lifeblood of broadcast television, commercials, are being delivered to TV stations and cable channels as files. Telestream plays a crucial role in automating the ingest of commercials and associated metadata into the facility, and works closely with the delivery service providers in this space. These partnerships have grown to include 10 companies, with compatibility over the past year for spots delivered from Pathfire, Centaur, and Spottraffic.

Telestream now supports more than 50 video, audio and wrapper formats. A key new partnership with Autodesk Media & Entertainment systems expands support to enable direct file transfer between these products and a broad range of professional video systems. 

Also at NAB, OmniBus Systems is announcing Telestream FlipFactory support for their new iTX software-based automation system. FlipFactory allows iTX users to flip video content from existing video servers onto IT-based storage networks without re-encoding or re-ingesting the media.

In addition to participation in the Grass Valley OAP initiative and working closely with Apple and Microsoft, Telestream’s Flip4Mac business maintains an important partnership with Sony. Support for Sony XDCAM Professional Disc production systems expands to include low-res proxies and HD formats in addition to existing SD high-resolution formats. 

New products and partner solutions as well as enhancements to Telestream’s core file-based workflow solutions are being demonstrated in Telestream Booth SL-2781 at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas this week.

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About Telestream (www.telestream.net)
Telestream products have set the standard with the world's leading media and entertainment companies, corporations, and government institutions for the encoding, organizing, and delivery of digital media. Customers rely on Telestream products for convenient, cost-effective, and robust digital media access and exchange over IP networks. The company's core workgroup and enterprise solutions and newer Flip4Mac tools for the Macintosh streamline digital media workflows for content owners, creators, and distributors in any industry segment. Telestream and its team of video experts are located in Nevada City, the “video valley” region of Northern California. The company is privately held.

 

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