South San Francisco, CA – March 30, 2009 – Envivio Inc., the leading provider of compression solutions for Three Screens video convergence, today introduced Elite Compression--a powerful enhancement for its award-winning 4Caster C4 and M2 mobile TV encoders. This new compression tier is tuned to optimize the media playback experience on today's most popular mobile devices. Elite Compression will debut at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas from April 1 – 3, 2009 (Booth 8962). It will be available to participants in Envivio’s Mobile Streaming trade up program, which offers discounts up to 35 percent to operators who replace their existing software encoders with the Envivio 4Caster C4 before May 31, 2009.
Elite Compression bridges the performance gap that currently exists in the mobile streaming market by targeting the many mass market mobile devices which use their central processor to decode media content. While H.263 and MPEG-4 Simple Profile compression are well matched to the capabilities of older or entry level mobile devices, they underutilize the performance of modern mid-range handsets using processors such as the ARM11. This prevents subscribers from enjoying the full media playback capability of their new devices. Conversely the more complex H.264 Baseline Profile is suitable only for premium handsets with dedicated video decoding hardware as it overloads even the newest mid-range devices resulting in low frame rate video and an unacceptable user experience.
Elite Compression fills the significant void between those extremes by enabling mainstream mid-range devices, which comprise the majority of handsets in use, to deliver their optimum video and audio playback experience. Elite Compression is based on the H.264 standard, making it compatible with the standard media players provided by companies such as PV, NXP and RealNetworks that are already installed on millions of handsets.
The addition of Elite Compression takes place entirely at the headend, making it easy for operators to deploy. Its effect, however, is far-reaching and offers dramatic improvements in mobile TV performance across the broadest spectrum of mobile devices. Typical competing encoding solutions rely on single vendor, proprietary technologies which force operators to update every individual handset to maintain compatibility. In contrast, Envivio Elite Compression is based on the H.264 open standard. As a result it does not require special handset players or any handset upgrades at all to enhance the performance on today’s most popular and widely used phones. The net result is an instant improvement in the quality of experience for an operator’s existing subscriber base.
“Our close collaboration with the world’s leading mobile network operators and handset vendors put us in a unique position to understand the challenges facing operators,” said Boris Felts, Vice President of Product Marketing at Envivio. “The result is a new compression tier that delivers enhanced quality of experience for the majority of the world’s mobile streaming users. It directly addresses the primary factor that attracts and retains subscribers and does not rely on a proprietary solution that requires millions of handsets to be updated and which locks operators to a single supplier.”
Envivio’s flexible compression architecture will allow operators currently using the 4Caster C4 and M2 encoders to add the new Elite Compression capability simply by upgrading their software code. New software code can be uploaded to C4 and M2 encoders individually using the built-in web server management interface or in groups using Envivio’s 4Manager NMS, allowing performance to be improved significantly while minimizing the impact on operational services. Elite Compression will be available on the next software releases of the 4Caster C4 and M2 encoders.
Envivio will be demonstrating Elite Compression at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas from April 1 – 3, 2009 (Booth 8962) and at NAB 2009 in Las Vegas from April 20 – 23, 2009 (Booth SU2424). Visit the Envivio booth at these shows or our website at www.envivio.com.
About Envivio Inc.
Envivio Inc. is the leading technology provider of IP video convergence encoding solutions for telcos and broadcasters. Envivio is the only company to offer convergence solutions supporting the “Three Screens” of consumer video – TVs, PCs and mobile phones – making IP video a reality over any type of network and to any multimedia device from mobile to HD. Envivio solutions deliver industry leading AVC (H.264), AVS, and Windows Media Video (VC-1) compressed video quality at the lowest bit rate for mobile TV, Internet TV, IPTV, and broadcast applications. Service providers worldwide use Envivio solutions to reduce their operational costs while offering subscribers the most compelling and highest quality video services anytime and anywhere.
