Advantech launched its new VEGA-7010 server, which supports 4K/8K HEVC/AVC processing at IBC 2017.

The increasing adoption of HEVC for live streaming of high resolution video content is outstripping the processing capabilities of existing video solutions. There is a tendency to move heavy lifting video processing tasks to the cloud but the computational complexity of HEVC still remains a concern when having to deal with live UHD encoding and decoding locally. The VEGA-7010 steps in here.

Advantech’s latest video server “provides high-performance and broadcast-quality media processing in a 1U and low power format that can be easily deployed to run encoding, decoding or transcoding applications in production facilities, outside broadcasting units or local hubs.”

The appliance is based on Intel Xeon Processor E3-1200 v6 that integrates on-chip graphics engine to improve the performance of 4K HEVC developments. Its four PCI Express slots provide fit a wide range of video accelerators such as FPGA or GPU cards supporting up to 300W PCIe power. When integrating Advantech’s VEGA 3300 accelerators, the VEGA-7010 can perform multi-channel 4Kp60 HEVC 10-bit encoding, decoding or transcoding, including SDI and IP media capture. It supports dual redundant power supply units for high availability in a variety of edge media processing scenarios. It supports Linux and Windows OS.

“Cloud-based architectures will certainly help media companies to efficiently deal with the massive compute needed for UHD HEVC video processing, but live contribution and user proximity will still play a key role in the upcoming video-centric era,” said August Hsieh, Product Director for Advantech Video Solutions Division. “The new VEGA-7010 enables live UHD contribution and distribution at edge locations to handle complex encoding, decoding and transcoding tasks locally, outside of the video cloud. This allows for distributed architectures where media companies and service providers can benefit from the agility of the cloud and the flexibility of edge processing platforms closer to the action and closer to subscribers”.