Espial teams up with Harmonic for IP and OTT services

TV software specialist Espial has teamed up with technology provider Harmonic to integrate Harmonic’s VOS 360 media processing SaaS with Espial’s Elevate SaaS video platform.

The pair said that their joint offering would give service providers the ability to launch new IP and OTT services quickly, risk-free, and with minimal investment.

The integrated offering is intended to provide control, processing, and delivery of video content and services to a broad range of devices – from set-top boxes, to media players like Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire, to Smart TVs and mobile devices.

Jaison Dolvane

Espial’s Elevate SaaS video platform enables video services with a focus on management and control of video services, client applications, and user experience.

Harmonic’s VOS360 SaaS unifies the media processing chain, from ingest to transcoding, encryption, packaging, and origin. Hosted on public cloud infrastructure platforms, VOS360 SaaS is designed to enable MVPDs to offer services ranging from app-based TV across a variety of consumer devices, to IP set-top offerings and cable set-top based services.

Eric Armstrong, vice-president, SaaS Solutions, Harmonic, said: “Both Harmonic and Espial have been offering next-gen IPTV and OTT services for years, and together we have an extensive list of customers who are powering millions of active subscribers and devices. Working together, we are now able to offer operators a fully-integrated solution that is proven at scale, and can help operators quickly launch next-gen video services.”

Jaison Dolvane, CEO of Espial, said: “MVPDs need to address the needs of various subscriber segments — from millennials and premium subscribers, to traditional users, and more – in order to remain relevant and competitive. The ability to price, package, segment and analyze their various offerings is critical to avoid churn, retain subscribers and grow revenues. Getting to market quickly and risk-free, using TVaaS solutions, allows operators to focus their resources on selling, improving business metrics through data, and optimising their services offerings.”