ViewCast’s New Niagara Streaming Media Appliances Set for European Debut at IBC 2009
Low-Priced Niagara 2120 and innovative HD Niagara 7500 streaming media appliances positioned for breakout success in fast-growing European market
PLANO, Texas — Sept. 3, 2009 — ViewCast Corporation (OTCBB: VCST), a developer of industry-leading solutions for the transformation, management and delivery of digital media over IP and mobile networks, will showcase the two newest entries in its Niagara® family of streaming media appliances next week at IBC 2009 in Amsterdam. These highly-anticipated systems – the Niagara 2120, a low-priced Adobe® Flash® H.264 appliance, and the next-generation Niagara 7500 HD appliance – are expected to achieve widespread adoption in the European market because of their innovative features and growing demand for ViewCast’s world-class streaming media technology in the region.
Europe is experiencing unprecedented growth in Internet streaming technology, voice-over-internet (VOIP), and television services through broadband lines. Continued growth is expected particularly in broadcast, telecom, education and corporate communications - all sectors in which ViewCast’s plug-and-play solutions stand out among competing products.
“Many of Europe’s largest, most prominent broadcasting organizations rely on ViewCast’s Niagara appliances for powerful and intuitive streaming media capabilities,” said ViewCast President and CEO Dave Stoner. “With the recent introductions of the Niagara 2120 and Niagara 7500, ViewCast is extending our leadership in the streaming media appliance market and equipping customers of all levels of technical expertise with advanced, feature-rich streaming media platforms to elevate the quality and impact of their Internet video programming.”
Both the Niagara 2120 and Niagara 7500 appliances come standard with ViewCast SimulStream® technology, which enables a single video source to generate several video streams simultaneously – in multiple resolutions and bit rates - with each stream configured differently for laptops, cell phones, or mobile devices. Stoner noted that the rapidly expanding use of streaming video in cell phones, PDAs and other mobile wireless electronic devices has created a significant market for ViewCast.
“Hand-held devices such as cell phones are proving to be a very important streaming medium for which our products play a key role,” Stoner added.
The Niagara 2120, a low-cost, easy to use streaming media appliance that supports H.264 streaming via the Adobe® Flash® platform, is designed for organizations in corporate, government, education, worship and athletic settings seeking a plug-and-play platform for streaming video content across enterprise networks or over the Internet. Optimized for simplified set-up and operation and featuring a built-in Web interface to enable streamlined management from anywhere on the network, the compact, self-contained Niagara 2120 is ideal for location streaming applications, and fits easily into any production control room. Users simply set the desired streaming parameters via the intuitive Web interface, then initiate one or more streams simultaneously from the front panel “Stream” button.
The Niagara 7500 is a powerful, feature-rich streaming appliance for Web-based delivery of high-definition video, designed for the most demanding professional broadcasting and media distribution applications. Combining dual quad core processing power with ViewCast’s advanced video processing and encoding capabilities, the Niagara 7500 simplifies the complex workflows associated with the transformation and delivery of live and on-demand HD video to IP and mobile networks, and features a sleek, innovative touch control interface with contextual menus that streamline and simplify system operations. A key feature of its video processing capability is that it can switch-on-the-fly between standard and high-definition sources, without having to re-initialize the system. Users can stream live content in multiple bit-rates and resolutions simultaneously in Windows Media®, Silverlight® and Adobe® Flash® H.264, and take advantage of powerful video pre-processing tools such as closed-caption rendering, de-interlacing, and inverse telecine.
ViewCast is also featuring a new release of its Niagara SCX® streaming media management software. Niagara SCX 6.0 enables centralized set-up, monitoring and control over multiple systems positioned anywhere on the network – all from a single desktop. The new Niagara SCX 6.0 software release also includes Adobe® Flash® H.264 streaming capability, as well as ViewCast’s Intelligent Stream Connect technology that allows multiple instances of a video stream to be connected to a single CDN to ensure continuous and fail proof operation.
ViewCast at IBC 2009
ViewCast will be demonstrating the Niagara 2120 and Niagara 7500 at IBC 2009 in Amsterdam, September 11 - 15. Visit ViewCast at IBC #IP323.