We met with Fabio Murra, SVP Product & Marketing at V-Nova, in the IABM Members Lounge at the show – an oasis that somehow we had missed over the years, despite 16 visits!
V-Nova is continuing to develop its business and on the back of its investment from Eutelsat, the company has been working on the use of its codec for contribution in HD via satellite at 80Mbps with 10 bits of HD at 4:2:2 and using a standard 36MHz transponder. The increased compression is essential for delivering high quality content to studios. Eutelsat said that the codec has a 30% advantage over JPEG 2000 in this application.
The company has also been developing its software solution that can run on its broadcast grade server, based on standard X86 architecture. The use of a software codec makes the system more flexible than solutions based on dedicated hardware.
The next stage after uploading is to develop support for the codec in the cloud to allow cloud-based workflows (as shown by Sony at the event). It has also been working with the TheoPlayer HTML5 media player (which is widely used by OEMs and brands including CNN & Twitter) to support the Perseus 2 codec and there is now support in Edge, Chrome Opera etc. The latest Perseus 2 codec can be used in a scripted mode, enabling access from javascript, which has eased support issues.
V-Nova has been working to get support from Wyplay in its middleware platforms and has also got support now from Imagine Communications for its Selenio One professional compression systems and that brought to ten the number of companies supporting V-Nova at IBC.
The company has worked with NGCodec which has designed an FPGA that can boost performance of HEVC codecs and the companies said that they would demonstrate UltraHD compression at 60fps in real time using a single FGPA and NGCodec said that the performance is 10x better than using a CPU. The plan is to get this FPGA into data centres to allow cloud-based compression with the process using a single AWS instance.
There has been a lot of activity and V-Nova still has only 60 or so people, so it is keen to make partnerships where it can get some scale. In particular, the deal with Tata Elixi which is a provider of broadcast services. This deal will enable a new project to come to fruition which has meant the two companies working together on an STB project for a ‘Tier 1’ service provider. Clearly, in a closed Pay TV environment, the Perseus codec could lead to a reduction in bits that need to be delivered to create a service.
As well as these higher bandwidth applications, V-Nova is still working on developments with Thai Com and in India to develop the delivery of content over OTT platforms including a range of mobile technologies.
Analyst Comment
V-Nova has done very well in getting recognition for its technology. It continues to add supporters and users and we expect to see quite a lot of developments in the next year as projects roll out. It is also picking up some credible investors including Eutelsat and Sky. (Sky Takes Minority Stake in V-Nova) (BR)
