Telestream (stand 7.G30), a provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, will use IBC 2016 to showcase scalable broadcast quality live streaming solutions, strategic advances in video encoding and transcoding systems, and the latest developments in Cloud-based enterprise services.
At IBC, Telestream will introduce to the European market Lightspeed Live Stream which succeeds in bringing broadcasts and OTT together in the live space. Lightspeed Live Stream is the company’s enterprise-scale live streaming platform, developed to provide fully produced, high value, premium content OTT to end users watching on their device of choice.
Another European first for IBC is Lightspeed Live Capture, which provides encoding of real-time SD, HD and UHD into all of the common high-quality mezzanine formats in use worldwide, while simultaneously supplying a streaming proxy for each channel being processed. This integrated hardware and software appliance combines multiple CPU and GPU cores as well as targeted ASIC CODEC acceleration to deliver flexible and efficient encoding performance.
But Telestream’s view of the market is not just about the big events. Telestream Wirecast offers production capability and streaming for a broad diversity of events, leveraging Facebook, YouTube and other streaming platforms to create compelling streamed data.
Telestream’s focus on the live streaming space dates back to 2004, and centers on three core competencies: encoding and transcoding, including media compression for video and audio; partner integrations that enable best-of-breed workflows; and unprecedented commercial live streaming expertise. Being able to provide live streaming infrastructure, production capability and services to make it all work means content owners and event producers can look to Telestream and its broad range of solutions to fulfil all facets of their streaming media vision and business model.
Telestream Vantage
At IBC, Telestream will also provide European debuts for major new functionality within its flagship enterprise-class software product–Vantage. Through an Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Optimization feature, Vantage can significantly reduce delivery bandwidth needs and slash content distribution network costs by up to 40 per cent within multiscreen distribution applications.
Also at IBC, Telestream will showcase Vantage Open Workflows which helps support OTT services to support multi-screen media distribution. It enables the user to start generating output before file input is completed, reducing processing time and empowering broadcasters to automatically access content as soon as it starts to enter the file-based workflow and before file ingest is completed.
Meanwhile, enhancements to its caption automation system, Vantage Timed Text Flip, provide subtitle overlay support for Latin-based languages (English, Spanish) together with Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, and more. It increases captioning process automation whilst still enabling the right level of human interaction in any application.
Telestream’s head is in the Cloud
Increasing numbers of broadcasters and facilities are looking to exploit the potential efficiencies and cost savings that Cloud-based services offer, however many are still sceptical about the risks associated with off premises content security and SLA (Service Level Agreement) uptime for critical workflows.
At IBC, Telestream will demonstrate Telestream Cloud, a video encoding SaaS (software as a service) ideally suited to meet the needs of video production and post production professionals. Telestream Cloud extends the reach of encoding capabilities to a wider audience seeking Telestream quality encoding, while offering cloud-encoding scalability for current users.
“The challenge facing broadcasters today encompasses OTT multi-platform delivery much more than ever before – the quality of their multi-platform offerings–both live and file-based–can be the difference in today’s fluid consumer-centric market,” commented Paul Turner, VP, Enterprise Product Management. “At IBC, we will demonstrate the market leading position that Telestream is building in all facets of this demanding market: the reason why so many broadcasters and facilities worldwide regard Telestream as its trusted technology partner.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More