This year’s NAB is shaping up to be very exciting and you won’t want to miss RGB’s latest innovations in IP video. Here are just some of the hot new multiscreen technologies we will be highlighting at our booth:

MPEG DASH: Read this blog posting to learn about the newest adaptive streaming standard and then take a look at our announcement – RGB is the only company to support all four major protocols for live and on-demand applications.

Just-in-Time Packaging: This newest innovation in time- and place-shifted video delivery makes it easier and more cost-effective to deliver services across multiple screens. Read more and download our white paper >>

File-to-File Transcoding: Discover why the new iPad has video service providers looking for new VOD transcoding solutions.

Hyper-Targeted Advertising: Take a look at this video that highlights how adaptive bitrate ad insertion can help strengthen the business model for TV Everywhere.

IP Video Delivery: Read this article from IPTV International about meeting the challenges of the new multiscreen delivery model.

Click here to schedule a meeting at the show or just drop by booth #SU10412 for demos and discussion.

And don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and/or Google+ for updates throughout the year.

We hope to see you in Las Vegas!

VOD transcoding is getting a lot of attention these days. Not that it ever went out of style, but lately it’s become front and center again for many video service providers (VSPs). I am on several customer calls and meetings per week about the topic.

Why all the attention on VOD transcoding? Simple answer – adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming. Tablets, phones, even set-top boxes are getting in the act. The new iPad “3” (even though Apple just calls it “the new iPad”) is taking ABR streaming capabilities to a new level. The new iPad’s 2048-by-1536 pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch (ppi) is double the ppi density of the iPad 2. Analysts predict that Apple will sell a mind boggling 70 million of them this year.

And Apple isn’t the only game in town – the Samsung Galaxy tab and Amazon Kindle are two other hot devices that VSPs want to reach. Not to mention connected TVs and new adaptive streaming capable set-top boxes.

Providing VOD content to these devices is an entirely new revenue opportunity that has opened up to operators – and they want to capitalize on it.

Unfortunately however (there’s always a “but” isn’t there?) it’s not that simple. The traditional VOD transcoding that is done to deliver content to MPEG-2 and H.264 capable set-top boxes doesn’t work for newer over-the-top (OTT) devices. The content needs to be coded into several different profiles (bitrates and resolutions), segmented, packaged and encrypted. Plus, different packaging is required depending on whether you want to deliver content to HLS, SS, HDS or MPEG DASH clients.

That’s where file-to-file (F2F) ABR VOD transcoding comes in. With an ABR capable transcoder (like RGB’s Linux software-based TransAct Transcoder), you can transcode all of your VOD content into every bitrate, resolution and package type to reach any device. Plus, with built-in encryption capabilities that are integrated with leading DRM providers, our TransAct Transcoder allows operators to encrypt content and push to the CDN for distribution to end devices. In fact, we have several customers doing this today – packaging and encrypting latest release movies and making them available over a CDN.

A few key advantages that customers appreciate about our offline/VOD transcoding capabilities:

• Multiscreen VOD enablement
  • ABR VOD transcoding to all adaptive streaming formats
  • Manifest/index file creation
  • HLS and SS DRM encryption

• Plug-and-play into VOD ecosystem
  • Watch folders and drop folders on NFS, CIFS or WebDAV mounts
  • F2F XML-RPC API signaling with call back
• CableLabs-compliant output including interlaced output for MPEG-2 and H.264

Plus, one of the really cool things you can do with our VOD transcoder is create a set of mezzanine format TS files that can then be packaged later for delivery “just-in-time” to ABR devices (take a look here for more information on this application).

If you want to learn more about our VOD transcoding capabilities, visit our File-to-File Transcoding page where you can download a detailed solution overview.

If you care about storage costs, network bandwidth or the headaches of a network upgrade, our TransAct Packager is a must-have component for your multiscreen deployment. With today’s announcement of just-in-time packaging (JITP) capabilities, this award-winning product continues to stay on the leading edge of adaptive bitrate streaming technology.

A first-of-its-kind capability, JITP enables on-the-fly packaging of video streams for delivery to any device, as it’s requested. By eliminating the need for pre-packaging, JITP saves the cost and bandwidth issues associated with storing large amounts of content for VOD and NDVR multiscreen applications.

This white paper explains the concept in more detail, providing specific use cases with cost models for storage and bandwidth vs. JITP.

Even if you have a relatively small content library today, JITP can save you headaches in other areas as well. When deploying solutions for new adaptive streaming protocols, such as the new MPEG DASH standard, JITP gives you an easy entry point, eliminating the need to convert your entire on-demand library into the new protocol all at once – do it ‘just-in-time’ and you not only save on storage, but offline transcoding costs and efforts as well. Just think – when Apple makes that next upgrade to HLS, you’ll be ready to go!

For those of you who already use the TransAct Packager in your network, adding this new JITP capability is a simple license upgrade. And for those of you who are considering adding this one-of-a kind packager to your network, click here to learn about its many other industry-leading features.

We’ll be demonstrating our new just-in-time packaging capability, along with MPEG DASH support, at NAB later this month. Come see us at booth #SU10412 and find out how you can future-proof your multiscreen deployment.