Media Excel has provided transcoding for telcos and broadcasters around the world, including Orange, Bell Canada, MTV and AT&T U-verse, not to mention live events including the NFL, Formula One and Chelsea Football matches. So why is this their first time at BVE?
“Until now our partner Garland has been our presence,” said Media Excel director of product management Nikos Kyriopoulos (pictured) at the company’s stand. “We began by developing SDK’s for Intel, Microsoft, Cisco that use our software in their set top boxes or their headends.”
But the two domains for the company’s Hero product, multiscreen and contribution and point-to-point, couldn’t be more relevant in the digital transformation currently shaking the broadcast world. Competition between vendors striving to offer the best transcoding solutions has been fierce.
“It has been shootout between everyone who has a solution,” said Kyriopoulous. And 4K solutions are one of the prizes fought over. He noted that even with no great quantity of UHD content to show, the 4K stampede was still in full swing. There may not be much demand for 4K today, but broadcasters are fully preparing for it.
“Tier one broadcasters have to have at least one 4K option ready. They have to tick that 4K box, even though they have no content.”
Fortunately for Media Excel, not every part of the world is adopting 4K at the same rate. Korean companies have employed Media Excel’s virtual playout solution, which delivers a high quality upscale of HD to UHD.
“In Korea it’s easy to cover the entire country. There’s fibre to the home. We’re also doing work in Japan.” Turkey is another big market for Media Excel’s 4K products, he said, pointing to the huge number of UHDTV’s sold in the country and its position as a big 4K TV manufacturing hub for companies like LG.
