A roundup of vendor and operator news from around the globe. Today's edition focuses on the Middle East/North Africa, Asia-Pacific and western Europe.
United Arab Emirates
ATEME is reinforcing a partnership with MBC GROUP, a private multimedia company in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. Following a first deployment in 2017, ATEME now provides MBC GROUP with an H.264 and HEVC live headend for multiscreen services. The deployment is based on ATEME's Titan software solution, which is designed to run on private/public and on-/off-premises cloud infrastructure.
MBC Group (Middle East Broadcasting Center) launched MBC1 in London in 1991 as the first private free-to-air Arab satellite TV channel. The company is headquartered in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates.
Indonesia
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) and Veygo, a provider of multiscreen user experience software, have teamed up to create a SaaS solution for OTT video delivery. Veygo's Meta_Video Player for content and subscriber management, secure player, analytics and applications, has been integrated with Harmonic's Electra media processor and VOS 360 media processing SaaS. The combined Veygo-Harmonic solution has been deployed by Indonesian streaming provider AMTV for its new premium multiscreen service.
Harmonic's cloud-based VOS 360 SaaS handles the entire media processing chain from ingest to playout, compression, packaging and OTT delivery for both live and on-demand content. OTT services can be scaled up and down based on actual needs.
China
NAGRA's NexGuard video watermarking technology has been certified by the ChinaDRM Lab, the standards body that oversees digital rights management in China. The ChinaDRM Lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the technical branch of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China (SAPPRFT), conducted the compliance process.
ChinaDRM security technology requirements are consistent with those of Hollywood and are recognized by the Hollywood studios and other major content owners.
According to a recent study by eMarketer, nearly 229 million Chinese consumers will have a paid subscription to a streaming service in 2018 in a market that is estimated to have grown by more than 80% in 2017.
The Nordics
Conax, a Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD:S) company, is collaborating with the DTH operator Canal Digital to secure its new Android TV-based video service, "OnePlace."
OnePlace is now available to Canal Digital's DTH customers across its Nordic footprint. The new OnePlace set-top box will deliver content and games via the Google Play Store, access to all content from one unified user interface, as well as features like voice search and the ability to cast content from any mobile device to the big screen.