Companies to debut market-ready, joint solution at IBC2015 with live demonstration of SMPTE 2022 and J2K compliance across respective products

Imagine Communications, a global leader in video and advertising solutions serving the media and entertainment, multichannel video programming distributors and enterprise markets, and EVS, the technology leader in live broadcast and media technology for sports, news and entertainment, today announced a partnership that embraces industry standards for IP signal distribution to deliver a best-of-breed, end-to-end solution for live production, slow motion and instant replay operations. The integrated solution will focus initially on utilizing the SMPTE 2022 and JPEG2000 (J2K) standards for moving and managing SDI and compressed signals over IP to bring increased agility and cost efficiencies to live production facilities, as well as helping to enable broadcasters to seamlessly transition to an all-IP ecosystem.

The alliance strengthens EVS’ global live enrichment offering, comprised of its industry-leading video production and content management solutions, and Imagine Communications’ market-leading routing and processing platforms. The combined end-to-end solution is designed to deliver the reliability, quality and performance that news, sports and live production operations demand.

“As a true pioneer of live video replay and instant video enrichment, EVS has always been at the forefront of practical technology innovations offering real benefits to our clients,” said Muriel De Lathouwer, managing director and CEO, EVS. “Our open collaboration with other industry leaders such as Imagine Communications enables us to present our customers with comprehensive IP-based workflows relying on our legendary robustness and flexibility for future live operations.”

Shifting video consumption patterns and new competitive demands are putting increased pressure on media and entertainment companies to improve the quality, productivity and efficiencies of their production facilities. By embracing industry standards that enable multivendor interoperability and a gradual and pragmatic migration to next-generation technologies, broadcasters are able to build out future-proof facilities that deliver higher-quality content, are operationally efficient and possess the agility needed to pursue new monetization opportunities.  The flexibility of IP also relieves live production environments of many of the architectural constraints of proprietary solutions, including dependency on inter-site connectivity for wide area workflows.

By leveraging industry standards to forge an end-to-end, best-of-breed solution, Imagine Communications and EVS are providing its customers with a seamless migration path to next-gen IP technologies. The joint solution creates a hybrid SDI-IP environment that allows media companies to preserve baseband investments and maintain operational transparency while benefitting from the performance and cost efficiencies of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) switching equipment.

“Imagine Communications is a champion of industry standards and the role they play in moving the industry toward next-gen technologies, including IP, software-defined networking and cloud, to deliver the agility and performance that media and entertainment companies require to compete today and in the future,” said Charlie Vogt, Imagine Communications CEO. “The partnership between our two companies is a meaningful first step toward realizing that goal. We look forward to working with EVS to supply our customers with the broadest range of standard-compliant products for signal distribution in the media industry.”

Imagine Communications and EVS will demonstrate the market-ready joint solution at IBC2015. The live demonstration, one of the first-ever of IP interoperability in a multivendor environment, will be conducted in Imagine Communications’ and EVS’ booths. The two companies will demonstrate live sports and slow-motion applications that utilize compressed and uncompressed SDI over IP video signals routed from remote venues to a centralized production center. The demonstration features the Imagine Communications Selenio™ MCP with SMPTE 2022 Uncompressed-Over-IP (UCIP) and J2K interfaces. The Imagine Communications Magellan™ SDN Orchestrator will simultaneously manage the routing and control of all IP and SDI signals. EVS’ XT3 media production server uses the new EVS XiP gateway to manage in/out SMPTE 2022 IP video signals with HD multicamera live feeds and highlights.

To view the IBC2015 demo and for more information, please visit Imagine Communications at Stand 4.AMT and EVS at Stand 8.B90.

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About Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, futureproof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

About EVS
EVS provides its customers with reliable and innovative technology to enable the production of live, enriched video programming, allowing them to work more efficiently and boost their revenue streams. Its industry-leading broadcast and media production systems are used by broadcasters, production companies, post-production facilities, film studios, content owners and archive libraries around the globe. It spans four key markets – Sports, Entertainment, News and Media.

Founded in 1994, its innovative Live Slow Motion system revolutionized live broadcasting. Its reliable and integrated tapeless solutions, based around its market-leading XT server range, are now widely used to deliver live productions worldwide. Today, it continues to develop practical innovations, such as its C-Cast second-screen delivery platform, to help customers maximize the value of their media content.

The company is headquartered in Belgium and has offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. Approximately 500 EVS professionals from 20 offices are selling its branded products in over 100 countries, and provide customer support globally. EVS is a public company traded on Euronext Brussels: EVS, ISIN: BE0003820371. For more information, please visit www.evs.com.