Globecast unveils OTT service delivery packages

Media services provider Globecast is using NAB to introduce a new OTT offering encompassing live, VoD and catch-up programming.

OTT Live is for simulcast delivery of linear channels. OTT VoD ingests individual programme assets into the online video platform for VoD services and delivers the content over the Internet, and OTT Live-to-VoD creates a VoD package from entire linear channels.

Globecast has partnered with Akamai as its preferred CDN supplier, while Kaltura is supplying its online video platform and app technologies as well as providing the video management layer.

Anevia is supplying its Viamotion Plus solutions suite that interoperates with all transcoders currently available, according to the company. Globecast is deploying technology from Thomson Video Networks and Elemental to provide transcoding solutions for linear and non-linear content.

Christine Jecko, chief marketing officer at Globecast, told DTVE that Globecast would deliver its OTT offering from all three of its global media centres in Singapore, Los Angeles and London. In addition to working with Akamai, she said that Globecast would also team up with local CDNs to meet the needs of content providers targeting specific markets where Akamai did not have a major presence, such as Russia.

Jecko said that Globecast’s platform would deliver VoD preparation, including VoD files for catch-up TV as well as for on-demand content not in the live playlist.

Globecast is targeting content providers and aggregators that want to deliver video content globally. Jecko said that the company believes there is substantial potential for growth in the Asian market in particular. She said that Globecast benefited from its position in the Chinese market, giving it a competitive advantage over rivals.

“We are not only serving broadcasters but also content owners that want to go directly to customers via OTT,” she said. Another target market is smaller pay TV aggregators that would like third parties to deliver OTT services, in particular for mobile delivery.

Jecko said Globecast primarily sees OTT delivery as complementary to satellite and other forms of broadcast.

Globecast will this year add ‘edge playout’ to its portfolio of playout services, said Jecko. This involves the use of infrastructure in specific territories to localise content delivered over fibre from a main broadcast centre located elswhere. The idea, she said, is to enable broadcasters to market-test services in new countries, meeting local regulatory compliance requirements and potentially delivering localised graphics, advertising and content without the need to invest heavily in local infrastructure.

Edge playout is seen as complementary but distinct from remote playout, already offered by Globecast, where playout in particular territories can be managed from a centre located somewhere else.