News Release - For immediate release

Premium TV Deploys Telestream Workflow Automation to Deliver Near-live Football Highlights for Barclays English Premier League

FlipFactory and GraphicsFactory enable Premium TV to
deliver over 60 versions of branded game highlights to
over 50 mobile and broadband global licensees
within minutes of live game events

Amsterdam, Netherlands (IBC Show) September 7, 2007 – Telestream, the leading provider of media encoding workflow solutions, today announced that Premium TV, an end-to-end provider of digital services and products to the sports and entertainment industries, has deployed Telestream’s FlipFactory and GraphicsFactory workflow automation products for Barclays Premier League. The graphics assembly software application is built on Telestream’s world-class FlipFactory transcoding engine to automate high-volume branding and encoding workflows. Premium TV won the contract in June 2007 to produce and deliver in-match, near-livebranded football highlight clips, delayed highlights and other programming on behalf of the Barclays Premier League, to mobile and broadband licensees outside of the UK. The first matches were successfully delivered on schedule in August using an array of five Telestream workflow automation systems.

“Fulfilment of this contract would not have been possible without the unique capabilities of Telestream’s GraphicsFactory which adds complex graphics as part of the encoding process and enables us to meet our delivery deadline,” said Andy Measham, COO at Premium TV. “We are extremely pleased with the performance and flexibility of encoding with the FlipFactory engine and with the fantastic customer and technical support provided by Telestream and Boxer to deliver this new service in a very short time.”

Premium TV is an end-to-end service provider that builds, develops and manages one of the largest broadband and mobile platforms in Europe. In addition to Barclays Premier League, clients include more than 80 leading English football clubs, entertainment companies such as Virgin Media, Warner Music, Turner Broadcasting and ITV, plus mobile operators such as T-Mobile and Vodafone. Premium TV hosts over 150 websites, over 70 mobile internet sites and has more than 100 syndication partners around the world. Premium TV is owned by Access Industries, a US Industrial group.

Premium TV has many years experience capturing, encoding, preparing and distributing video and audio content for client websites. In early 2007 they purchased an array of multiple Telestream FlipFactory server software systems to improve the efficiency and automation of their encoding services. These servers were supplied and installed by Boxer Systems Ltd, and managed from Premium TV’s own production management system through controls written by in-house programmers using the FlipFactory SDK.

When Premium TV won the Barclays Premier League contract in June 2007, they turned to Telestream to meet the challenge. They expanded their implementation to five GraphicsFactory systems, powered by five FlipFactories, working as one load-balanced group with Telestream’s FactoryArray™ software to provide failover protection and database mirroring.

The agreement required that Premium TV capture games live, edit and produce 4-6 in-match highlight clips plus half-time and full-time round-ups for each game, add XML game details, insert bumpers and trailers to brand the highlights, encode the finished clips to over 60 different versions of 3GP, Windows Media and Flash and deliver the files to over 50 mobile and broadband distribution licensees – all within minutes of goals or major game events and roundups. According to Measham, “The implementation was completed on-schedule for the first day of the Barclays Premier League season and performed extremely well.”

“Premium TV is an excellent example of a customer that is taking full advantage of the range of workflow automation functions wrapped around our FlipFactory transcoding engine, to not only minimize labor cost, but actually enable distribution of branded content to dozens of customers in timeframes previously unthinkable,” said David Heppe, President & COO at Telestream. “Their application leverages our market leading format depth, encoding speed, reliability and scalability to achieve outstanding results.  We’re proud to be participating with Premium TV in the prestigious Barclays Premier League project.”

GraphicsFactory puts a front and back end on each clip which includes Barclays Premier League logo and text. Telestream’s MetaFlip™ technology has proved extremely helpful getting XML data to Premium TV’s clients. The data includes game details such as scores, names of teams and players who have scored. MetaFlip enables Premium TV to quickly tailor XML data for each of its clients, so that the providers, and ultimately the viewers, receive a full set of data along with the video. The next phase in the project is to add branding for the telecom providers, and then to extend that offer to include local branding and advertising. 

Premium TV has also been an early user of Telestream’s newly integrated Flash 8 encoder in FlipFactory. “The integrated On2 Flash encoder has given us significant quality and speed advantages over the standard Flix Exporter available directly from On2,” adds Measham.

The entire production process is controlled by Premium TV’s own Java-based production management system which instructs the GraphicsFactory servers through XML messages written using the FlipFactory SDK. According to Measham, “The SDK is fantastic. It provides a level of flexibility and control of the encoding process that far exceeds anything we’ve seen in other SDKs. Our developers loved working with it.”

FlipFactory is also used in the production of user-generated media which is uploaded by viewers to Premium TV for music, football and comedy websites. FlipFactory automatically encodes, processes, and delivers the files in the required formats and resolutions.

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About Telestream (www.telestream.net & www.flip4mac.com)
Telestream products have set the standard with the world's leading media and entertainment companies, corporations, and government institutions for encoding-based workflow automation solutions. Telestream helps customers transform their media for distribution to web, mobile, DVD, cable VOD, podcast and broadcast platforms. From plug-in components and tape ingest to desktop applications and scalable enterprise-class systems, Telestream’s high-speed solutions save users time, effort and money while increasing revenues. The company's solutions streamline media workflows for content owners, creators, and distributors in any industry segment. Telestream and its team of video experts are located in Nevada City, California, USA and in Stockholm, Sweden. The company is privately held.

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