Aksh To Deliver Three Screens TV Service With Envivio 4Caster C4

Telecom service provider Aksh Optifibre has selected the Envivio 4Caster C4 convergence encoder to upgrade and expand its video services making it the first Three Screens service provider in India. The Envivio Three Screens encoding platform will also enable Aksh to upgrade its existing IPTV service and add a new Internet TV offering.

“Delivering television services across all three consumer screens could be a complex undertaking,” said Dr Kailash Choudhari, MD, Aksh Optifibre. “Envivio’s 4Caster C4 enables us to standardise our encoding across a single flexible platform that can deliver Mobile TV, Internet TV and IPTV with efficient video and audio quality to virtually any device we want to support. The software architecture of this product will allow us to upgrade performance and features gracefully, while offering the tiered compression levels and the multi-profile support, which we believe will enhance the quality of experience for consumers.”

The 4Caster C4 convergence encoding system provides video compression for all Three Screens of consumer video – TVs, PCs and mobile devices – on a single platform. Designed to enable fixed line and mobile network operators to deliver content simultaneously across the full range of consumer devices, the 4Caster C4 is able to take multiple channels of content and encode them simultaneously to deliver multiple mobile TV profiles, multiple Internet TV profiles, or SD and HD IPTV profiles.

“Innovators like Aksh Optifibre are transforming the business of delivering TV, providing subscribers with viewing choices that reflect their busy, mobile lifestyles,” said Richard Stanfield, chief operating officer at Envivio. “Our 4Caster C4 was built with these forward-thinkers in mind, providing the flexibility to meet any service requirement and achieve the service quality needed to attract and retain today’s consumers.”

The 4Caster C4 supports digital, analog and MPEG-2 Transport Stream over IP inputs and a range of video and audio encoding options to enable efficient delivery of content to the Three Screens. The 4Caster C4 supports one channel of high definition or multiple channels of standard definition encoding for IPTV with support for Picture in Picture. It also offers multi-profile encoding support for Internet TV up to VGA resolution, and for mobile TV streaming. For IPTV applications, 4Caster C4 can be delivered in either Premium Compression or Extreme Compression encoding configurations using Envivio’s flexible encoding core. For Internet TV applications, 4Caster C4 can deliver content for playback in Windows Media Player, QuickTime and Flash. For Mobile TV applications, 4Caster C4 can deliver 3GPP, 3GPP2 compliant streams for playback on a wide range of mobile devices.