ITV

Category: Applications

  • Life Church Selects VITEC Houses of Worship Streaming Solutions

    Life Church Selects VITEC Houses of Worship Streaming Solutions

    ATLANTA – Oct. 8, 2019 – VITEC, a worldwide leader in advanced video encoding and streaming solutions, today announced its MGW Ace Encoder and Decoder were successfully installed at Life Church and its four satellite campuses in Memphis, Tenn. Part of VITEC's Houses of Worship Solution, the MGW Ace Encoder and Decoder allow the church to live stream its services from the main campus to its satellite locations easily, affordably, and in the highest quality with perfect synchronization, providing an enhanced video delivery that truly engages followers.

    "The two most important things for us when we were looking for a streaming platform were reliability and performance," said Brian Pitre, Life Church's Creative Director. "VITEC, without a doubt, delivers on both. It's been more than a year, and we have not had a single issue. That's a testament of VITEC's absolutely flawless technology."

    Life Church's yearslong search for a streaming solution that would easily and reliably record a high-quality broadcast video from the main location and stream it live to multiple satellite locations simultaneously without errors and with delayed playback ended with VITEC. Well-known in the house of worship market, VITEC utilizes cutting-edge HEVC encoding technology and the industry-leading Zixi™ error-free streaming protocol to seamlessly and reliably transmit multiple independent IP streams in high quality to churches of any size over the existing IP infrastructure. At each Life Church location, the MGW Ace Encoder and Decoder were successfully installed. The Ace Encoder features VITEC's next-generation HEVC (H.265) compression, which reduces network bandwidth by up to 50% compared to H.264. Because it supports both HEVC and H.264, it's built for the future without losing support for legacy receivers and decoders. The MGW Ace Decoder's unique, flexible, 4K-capable FPGA architecture provides a future-proof solution and ensures multisite live streaming on private or public networks. When paired with MGW Ace Encoder, the set becomes an end-to-end streaming solution that affordably transmits bandwidth-efficient, artifact-free, time-synchronized video and playback that meet the demands for streamed worship services.

    Another factor that played into Life Church's decision was the seamless integration of VITEC's house of worship streaming solution with Renewed Vision™ ProVideoServer™ (PVS), a four-channel HD video server from the most trusted technology provider in the worship space. PVS enhances the VITEC system with recording, playback, and time-slip capabilities. This combination allows Life Church to easily record its high-quality broadcast stream with embedded timecode and multichannel audio and play it back with the necessary delay at each of the satellite campuses at any time, even as it records.

    "The latest advances in technology have allowed Life Church to expand their reach, but they needed a high-quality and reliable streaming solution to build a truly connected community," said Mark Robison, Broadcast Solutions Specialist, VITEC. "With VITEC's scalable streaming solutions, now staff or volunteers don't have to worry about glitches disrupting the service or relying on previously recorded services to fill the slot. They can enjoy an error-free, distraction-free environment where they can home in on one live message that is shared with the entire Life Church family."

  • Silicon Valley based Firework, a social mobile video app launches in India with focus on next-gen consumer mobile applications

    Silicon Valley based Firework, a social mobile video app launches in India with focus on next-gen consumer mobile applications

    MUMBAI: Firework, a social mobile video app for iOS and Android devices, has now entered India. With ‘Reveal’, its patent pending technology, it will allow creators to take both horizontal and vertical video in one shot from their mobile device. Firework is part of a suite of apps created by Loop Now Technologies, Inc. a Redwood City, California (Silicon Valley) based incubator start-up that focuses on next-gen consumer mobile applications. Firework became the fastest social media app to achieve 1 million users in only 5 months while still in beta, growing +200% quarter over quarter. Firework is committed to empowering everyday creators to produce extraordinary stories with premium production value.

    In India, Firework will focus on working with some of the biggest names in entertainment and already has content from ALTBalaji amongst others. Firework will debut many interesting features in the coming months to its Indian users. Offering user generated, platform-curated and original content from media partners including Refinery29, Firework's launch includes the announcement of recent content creation, promotional and advertising partnerships. Thousands of top digital creators have already discovered Firework including Frankie Grande, Dang Matt Smith, Olivia Jordan, and Marlon Webb, among others.

    https://www.instagram.com/fireworkhq/?hl=en

  • Harmonic Powers Sky Italia OTT Services

    Harmonic Powers Sky Italia OTT Services

    SAN JOSE, Calif: Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that its cloud-native media processing software and content-aware encoding (CAE) technology is powering Sky Italia's OTT streaming services. The Harmonic solution is integrated into the Sky Italia hybrid cloud software-defined streaming platform. Leveraging the latest advancements in pure software architecture, the Harmonic solution provides Sky Italia with the agility, flexibility and scalability to speed up the launch of new premium services and enable delivery of superior video quality at low bitrates.

    Sky Italia's solution for its linear video streaming platform is based on Kubernetes and microservices to serve event-based and 24/7 channels on OTT platforms. Adhering to these requirements, Harmonic's VOS® Cluster software dynamically controls and optimizes Sky Italia's on-premises and cloud video-processing resources.

    "To ensure the success of our next-generation streaming services, delivery of exceptional video quality and the ability to quickly adapt to changes are critical factors," said Gabriele Ubertini, director of technology engineering and innovation at Sky Italia. "Harmonic's cloud-native media processing software aligns with our choice of moving resources to Sky's software-defined streaming infrastructure, while allowing us to be nimble. Using CAE, we can deliver stunning video to a larger group of subscribers, providing a better quality of experience to those in areas with challenging bandwidth availability."

    Sky Italia will use Harmonic's VOS software for OTT media processing in on-premises datacenters integrated with the Sky Italia architecture, which leverages Kubernetes and a SMPTE 2022 uncompressed multicast video network. By enabling Sky Italia to dynamically control and optimize its video processing resources, together with their blueprint for an open-source ecosystem, the VOS solution will dramatically accelerate time to market for new channels. EyeQ™ CAE will be used to significantly reduce Sky's bandwidth requirements, decrease CDN costs and improve QoE.

    "Sky Italia asked for a highly available and scalable streaming solution for outstanding video quality and state-of-the art ABR packaging. We went above and beyond in meeting these requirements," said Ian Graham, senior vice president of international sales and video services at Harmonic. "Having an elastic and always-up-to-date media workflow will give Sky Italia serious competitive advantages, enabling it to launch services faster and scale up seamlessly."

    Harmonic will showcase its latest video streaming innovations at IBC2019, Sept. 13-17 in Amsterdam at Stand 1.B20. Further information about Harmonic and the company's solutions is available at www.harmonicinc.com.

  • Actus Digital Drives Media Monitoring Efficiency With New Artificial Intelligence Capabilities

    Actus Digital Drives Media Monitoring Efficiency With New Artificial Intelligence Capabilities

    BOSTON: Actus Digital, a leading provider of compliance and media monitoring solutions, today announced that its world-renowned media monitoring system has been enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that dramatically speed up workflows. Using Actus Digital's intelligent, data-driven platform, media companies can automatically tag, organize, and categorize video recordings to enable rapid retrieval of relevant content and clips creation for social media outlets and the web.

    "In today's media environment, companies are dealing with a massive amount of content and data. How fast they can analyze data, find relevant content, and turn that content into engaging clips is a major differentiator," said Raphael Renous, CTO, Actus Digital. "AI is a game changer for media monitoring, as it opens up an entire new range of workflows and automation options. With our AI media monitoring platform, tagging and clips creation is an instantaneous process based on comprehensive content analysis, and we're excited to bring that unique value prop to our customers."

    Actus Digital's media monitoring platform, newly enhanced with AI, allows media companies to more intelligently monitor and search for content beyond the channel name, date/time, extracted metadata (i.e., as run/EPG, closed caption), and manually entered metadata. In addition, users can use the platform to search for spoken words (speech to text), text that appears in the videos, specific faces (facial recognition), logos and logo changes, and detect advertising. The AI capabilities are among ongoing improvements to the compliance solution, which offers detailed reports on loudness, SCTE, closed captions, automatic configuration options, OTT monitoring, and more.

    AI capabilities have also been added to Actus Digital's Clip Factory clips creation workflow for increased speed and efficiency. With these new options, media companies can decrease manual labor and gain an edge on the competition.

    The Actus Digital media monitoring platform delivers an intelligent approach to monitoring and support for multiple deployment environments, including on-premise, virtualization, cloud, and hybrid.

    Actus Digital will demonstrate the latest innovations for its media compliance and monitoring platforms at IBC2019, Sept. 13-17 in Amsterdam at stand 3.C69. For more information, visit www.actusdigital.com.

  • Outbrain Integrates with Google Display & Video 360 to Strengthen Programmatic Offerings

    Outbrain Integrates with Google Display & Video 360 to Strengthen Programmatic Offerings

    MUMBAI: Outbrain, the world’s leading discovery and native advertising feed for the open web, announced today the full launch of its integration with Google’s Demand-Side Platform (DSP), Display & Video 360 to give marketers greater ability to capitalize on the benefits ofOutbrain’s unique native inventory at scale.

    “Display & Video 360 gives our customers efficient access to buy Outbrain’s premium native inventory, further heightening our investment in both the programmatic space and innovative native solutions for marketers,” said Gilad de Vries, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Outbrain.

    By connecting with Display & Video 360 through BidSwitch, Outbrain gives buyers a more efficient and direct route to provide consumers with premium ad experiences at scale. Since acquiring Zemanta in 2017, Outbrain has continued its efforts to expand its programmatic offerings so that marketers are able to enjoy full flexibility in their buying strategies, across Outbrain’s premium inventory.

    "We are activating Outbrain in Display & Video 360 for our clients in order to reach a targeted audience on premium publishers and deliver incremental performance into their digital strategies," said Philippe Imbert, Head of Adex and Programmatic Partnerships at TradeLab, an Outbrain client.

    "Gaining access to quality native inventory remains a top priority for BidSwitch demand partners. We’re excited to be partnering closely with Outbrain to unlock new pools of premium native supply and make it available to advertisers using Google’s Display & Video 360 platform for buying on BidSwitch,” said Barry Adams, GM of BidSwitch.

    “Our platform and offerings are constantly evolving to cater to the needs of modern advertisers and publishers, and our continued investment in unique deals and inventory packaging are a direct reflection of that,” added de Vries.

  • Truecaller crosses 500 million downloads and 150 million daily active users globally

    Truecaller crosses 500 million downloads and 150 million daily active users globally

    MUMBAI: Truecaller announced today that the company has crossed 500 million downloads and surpassed 150 million daily active users (DAUs) globally. This comes close on the heels of the company sharing the news of attaining over 1 million paying subscribers to their Premium services.

    This is a significant achievement for Truecaller, which is emerging as a one-stop communication platform with a wide array of services like Instant Messaging, VoIP, and Payments. The 150 million DAU’s achievement makes Truecaller the most used communication app in India after apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

    The key factors that have led to this rapid growth are Truecaller’s many communication features like their smart dialer, VoIP capability, Instant Messaging, and their spam-free SMS inbox.

    Sharing his thoughts on this unique achievement, Alan Mamedi, CEO & Co-founder, Truecaller, said “By differentiating ourselves from the standard stock dialer and messaging apps, and solving some fundamental communication problems for our users, we have been able to capitalize and excel the competition. This is a very significant achievement. 150 million daily active users and 500 million downloads is extraordinary. These milestones underline the faith and trust our users have in our brand.”

    Along with this milestone Truecaller will soon be rolling out two important features that will revolutionize the standard dialer experience offered by smartphone manufacturers today:

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    Call Alerts: In an effort to help users depend less on low-speed and faulty networks, which are prevalent in emerging markets, Truecaller sends a Call Alert to users about who’s calling before the phone rings. This is a big upgrade for millions of Android users.
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    Full Screen Caller ID: Truecaller will be introducing the most powerful Caller ID and dialer experience on the market. There simply is no comparison when you look at standard dialers from phone makers. More and more people are finding it challenging to separate work and personal life, especially when they use their phones for both. With the new full screen Caller ID, you’ll see instantly whether an incoming call is personal, business, or spam – and on top of this you can do all other key actions like accepting, rejecting or sending a quick message from the same screen. This gives businesses a better opportunity to take control of their business profile, and in turn users will get more information on who’s trying to get in touch with them.

  • Dream11 creates a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for hosting the ‘Largest Online Fantasy Cricket Match’

    Dream11 creates a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for hosting the ‘Largest Online Fantasy Cricket Match’

    MUMBAI: Dream11, India’s Biggest Sports Game, today created a Guinness World Records title for hosting the 'Largest Online Fantasy Cricket Match'. This incredible feat was achieved by Dream11 during the 2019 final match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Dream11 users created over 1 crore (1,03,17,928) fantasy teams to compete in this fantasy sports match. To claim this record, Dream11 had to prove the participation of at least 40 lakh fantasy teams in that particular match. This is the first-ever Guinness World Records in the Online Fantasy Sports category.

    The electrifying finale, which had the entire country on the edge of their seats, also proved to be an exciting playground for fantasy sports enthusiasts as fans of the game unequivocally surpassed the minimum requirement of fantasy teams playing the game of cricket at a given time to create history. Dream11 recorded over 1 crore fantasy teams created by over 43 lakh (43,77,610) unique users playing together for the final match of Indian Premier League (IPL) match.

    Expressing his delight over the achievement, a Dream11 Spokesperson said, "Dream11 is excited to announce this record on India’s National Sports Day, as a dedication to our 7 crore+ users and their passion for sports. We are honoured to receive this certification from Guinness World Records. This global recognition is a validation of our belief in the rapidly evolving culture of sports fandom where more and more fans are seeking new avenues to immerse themselves in their favourite sports. This is resulting in a higher impetus for the sports ecosystem in India. We are deeply thankful to all our users who enjoy playing fantasy sports on Dream11 and made such an incredible feat possible for us!”

    Swapnil Dangarikar, Adjudicator, Guinness World Records™, said, “After careful scrutinisation of all the evidence, I am very happy to confirm that Dream11 has set a new record for a Largest Online Fantasy Cricket Match with an impressive 1,03,17,928 teams participating. I am pleased to say, Dream11 is now Officially Amazing!”.

    Guinness World Records is the ultimate global authority on new record creations as well as breaking old records that researches, measures, documents and authorizes the world’s superlatives. The creation of this record is a testament to the growing popularity of fantasy sports, and especially, Dream11 in India.

  • PhonePe clocks 335 Million transactions in July. Hits USD $95 Billion Annual TPV Runrate

    PhonePe clocks 335 Million transactions in July. Hits USD $95 Billion Annual TPV Runrate

    MUMBAI: PhonePe, announced today that it has achieved an annual TPV (Total payment volume) run-rate of $95 billion while clocking 335 Million transactions in July. PhonePe’s TPV run-rate has grown nearly 5X in the past year, since crossing the $20Bn mark in June 2018. This phenomenal growth has come on the back of the exponential expansion of PhonePe’s merchant network, both online and offline.

    PhonePe has invested aggressively on its marketing activities this year and was the official co-presenting sponsor for the TV broadcast of VIVO IPL 2019 and the Official co-presenting sponsor for the TV broadcast of ICC World Cup 2019.

    Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder PhonePe said, "We are thrilled by the rapid adoption of PhonePe services across India. Last month alone, the PhonePe app was used by 60 million users. This means one out of every 15 Indian adults used the PhonePe app in July. This is both very exciting and very humbling for our company which launched less than 3 years ago.”   

  • The Meitu App to wow Indian users with the launch of its new ‘Animate’ feature

    The Meitu App to wow Indian users with the launch of its new ‘Animate’ feature

    MUMBAI: Leading global innovator in mobile photo and video technology, Meitu is set to disrupt India’s photo-editing app segment by unveiling its newest Animate feature. Using AI technology, Animate brings pictures to life with a variety of dazzling effects. Whether it’s floral aura, vanishing heart, flying butterfly, flowing hair, petal burst, flame nebula, color filter overlays, or other motion filters, the Animate feature turns your imagination into reality in just one tap.

    Reports indicate that Indian users spend several hours on selfie-editing apps each day, with as many as nearly 2 million people using animated effects for their photos. The Meitu App which has garnered a 435% increase in daily active users (DAU) in India in June has been found to be particularly popular in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, and Madhya Pradesh, which substantially contribute to the Meitu App’s overall growth in the market. In this way, the Animate feature speaks to India’s fascination with photo-editing tools that enhance users’ social media posts in exciting new ways.

    Chen JianYi, head of the Meitu App, said, “We believe in turning the extraordinary into reality. Today’s users are always seeking new ways to retouch their photos, but are typically limited to basic filters and editing options. Our extensive research into consumer behavior and preferences shows that users want more out of their photo editing experience. For this reason, we have created a feature that offers a broad range of opportunities for users to explore their creativity by turning their static photos into dynamic flowing worlds.”

    Instantly turn static photos into magical flowing worlds

    The Animate feature adds motion to regular photos, turning them into a visual delight. Inspired by some of the world’s most beloved tales of magic and fantasy, the Animate feature allows users to experience the feeling that they are the masters of their own dynamic universe, just like the wizards and witches of fantastical realms. Not only does the Animate feature create magical portraits instantly, but it may also be used on landscapes, objects, group photos, full body portraits, and more.

    Smart Mode: Ready-to-use templates for the ultimate photo editing experience

    The Animate feature offers a quick tutorial to help users navigate its many possibilities. Simply open the Meitu App, and select a photo and magical template to create a customised animated image. Smart mode is extremely easy-to-use, and offers a range of effects such as Bling Bling, Sakura Beam, and more. Each effect includes different templates to meet users’ needs with multiple scene features.

    Manual Mode: Allows more advanced users to fully explore their creative potential

    More advanced users have the option to use manual mode to explore their creativity with the freedom to edit their photos manually. In this way, users can adjust their photos as they see fit, to create stunning and personalised works of art.

    Meitu’s AI technology creates stunning film-quality effects

    The Meitu App's Animate function uses a combination of cutting-edge AI technologies from MTLab that include instance segmentation and portrait area in-painting technologies. Its portrait segmentation technology is able to handle complex scenarios with multiple people and complicated backgrounds. Not only can it segment humans from scenery, it may also be used to add customised details to individuals within a group.

    Using portrait segmentation technology, Animate’s portrait area in-painting function is able to give portraits entirely new backgrounds. Animate offers a number of background effects, such as Sparkly Locks, Magical World, and Angelic, to add even more enchanting ambience to images that have been enhanced with AR or particle effects.

    Upcoming versions will allow users to apply unique effects to individuals within a group picture in Smart Mode. The Meitu App’s superior instance segmentation algorithm will also continue to improve the processing speed, robustness, precision of different kinds of images.

    Create dynamic fantasy worlds in just one tap with Animate!

  • Shemaroo Bhakti App Acts as a Devotees Guide for Kumbh Mela 2019

    Shemaroo Bhakti App Acts as a Devotees Guide for Kumbh Mela 2019

    MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, has curated a special section on Shemaroo Bhakti App for the devotees going to Kumbh Mela. The app will provide information on the history of Kumbh Mela, the upcoming events, travel and stay options and services available at the Mela for its subscribers.

    Shemaroo ventured in the devotional category a decade ago tapping the religious beliefs of Indians. Shemaroo Bhakti app was launched in January 2018 and has received an overwhelming response from subscribers across the globe till now. Shemaroo’s Bhakti app was recently awarded under the Most Innovative Mobile app category at the Drivers of Digital Summit 2018.       

    Kumbh Mela is the largest peaceful gathering in the world and plays a vital role in India’s historical, cultural and spiritual heritage where devotees from across the globe come to attend the holy festival. Users of Shemaroo’s Bhakti App will have information ranging from introduction to Kumbh Mela, Mythological significance, Rituals of Kumbh to the bathing dates and weather updates of Kumbh Mela 2019. The Rituals of Kumbh section will highlight all the important rituals that will go on during the Kumbh Mela. Bathing dates section will have all the bathing dates which can be added to your mobile calendar for reminder. The app is also equipped with a map for easy navigation during Kumbh in Prayagraj along with medical facilities available during the entire Kumbh duration.

    Shemaroo team will be creating content of Kumbh Mela darshan, which will be made available on its DTH & digital platforms.

    Additionally, this year’s Kumbh Mela will see an extravagant experience zone created by Shemaroo wherein the devotees will get hands-on experience of Shemaroo’s devotional services.