Zixi has expanded its partnership with Harmonic to deepen their development efforts focusing on broadcast quality live IP video platforms, and further integrate broadcast industry standards and safety protocols in hybrid cloud infrastructures. The result of these efforts will be the integration of Zixi technology into Harmonic’s VOS media processing platform and Spectrum XE media servers.

“Live IP-based video distribution over the open Internet is not easy, but broadcasters rely on Zixi and Harmonic to provide operational efficiency and dependability that rivals traditional satellite systems. We recognize that reliability and interoperability are key issues for the media industry. We are committed to work together to make sure widely used formats and industry standard protocols to enable flawless ingest to playout for our mutual customers.” Chris Noe, Executive Chairman of Zixi.

“Harmonic and Zixi are long-time partners providing best-in-class solutions for high-demand, broadcast quality IP-based delivery. Zixi’s team has years of experience providing rock solid technology relied on by many of Harmonic’s largest customers. We are solidifying our mutual expertise within our VOS platform moving video preparation and delivery into a hybrid cloud operation, accelerating time to market for new OTT services.” Bart Spriester, senior vice president, video products at Harmonic.

Zixi can be seamlessly added to hardware and software platforms by leveraging the free Zixi SDK and API. Doing so allows all users to become industry standard compliant.Zixi technology enables all partners, and their customers, to have a cost effective, proven, and secure method for delivering true broadcast quality live content over the open Internet. Demonstrations were held at IBC 2017.

MMT

Zixi also announced the availability of the Zixi software platform fully compliant with the industry standard MMT (MPEG Media Transport).

As part of the company's commitment to industry defined open standards, at IBC Zixi demonstrated a glass-to-glass software platform fully compliant to the MMT standard. MMT is the latest addition to a comprehensive list of media industry protocols that Zixi enables for the easy use and interchange of live video including HLS, RTMP, RTP, DASH, MPEG-TS, and ASI.

MMT was developed by the MPEG industry workgroup to support the emerging need for highly dynamic signal transport. The encapsulation process in MMT accepts media coding without restricting or specifying how it is encoded. MMT allows broadcasters to get closer to their goal of easily distributing from glass-to-glass a broader variety of professional content such as Ultra HD video content, 3D video content, interactive content, user generated content, applications that support multi-device presentation, subtitles, picture-in-picture video, and multiple audio tracks.

Ericsson

Ericsson has chosen Zixi to provide additional technology capabilities for their contribution applications.

Zixi’s Feeder and Receiver technology will be integrated into Ericsson’s recently launched MediaFirst Content Processing software-based decoder to meet the needs of media businesses that rely on premium content revenue.

“Ericsson customers are demanding broadcast quality on every screen. We must provide effective and agile deployments that maintain content integrity. We’re delighted to partner with Zixi to provide a first-rate service for high-demand, broadcast quality IP-based delivery”, says Arpad Jordan, Head of Media Processing and Delivery, Media Solutions at Ericsson.

“We recognize that Ericsson is an important leader in the broadcast space with tier-1 sports leagues and other entertainment customers that must provide a dependable, live, synced, video service across many screens. We are thrilled to have Ericsson join Zixi’s growing ecosystem of partners that make IP-based distribution dependable and standardized for all viewers to enjoy.” Michael Poppler, Director of Global Channel Sales at Zixi.

Imagine Communications

Zixi also announced its expanded relationship with Imagine Communications’ transformative innovation media services to work toward the goal of completely virtualized television operations.

Imagine Communications offers content owners and service providers tremendous opportunities to further monetize content by providing next-generation OTT solutions. These solutions enable broadcasters and service providers to streamline the delivery of revenue-generating content wherever and however viewers are consuming media. Zixi is the industry leader in enabling dependable, 5x9s QoS, live broadcast-quality video over the public Internet. Together Zixi and Imagine Communications’ partnership is helping reduce cost and expand opportunities for Cloud ingest and delivery.

David Heppe, VP of Product Management, Imagine Communications, said “Imagine Communications’ customers are seeking solutions to bridge the gap between yesterday’s television distribution dependability and today’s hybrid cloud and premises based requirements. Zixi understands that our Cloud-based ingest and delivery services require the perfection of hardware systems of years past, with today’s ability to cut costs with increasing scale. Zixi’s technology makes sure we’re compliant with industry standards, so we can provide our customers with fast and truly dependable solutions.”

“Zixi is the logical enhancement for Imagine Communications’ service residing in Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure. We support industry standards for optimal integration and opportunity, which means that Imagine’s SelenioFlex Live multi-screen encode for OTT will make it easier for clients to ingest and encode nearly anything, for any distribution need,” said Eric Bolten, VP of Business Development, Zixi.