Sky Italia chooses Harmonic cloud media processing for OTT

Sky Italia has tapped Harmonic to provide its cloud-native media processing software and content-aware encoding technology for its OTT streaming services.

The Harmonic solution is integrated into the Sky Italia hybrid cloud software-defined streaming platform.

Sky Italia’s solution for its linear video streaming platform is based on Kubernetes and microservices to serve event-based and 24/7 channels on OTT platforms. Harmonic’s VOS Cluster software dynamically controls and optimizes Sky Italia’s on-premises and cloud video-processing resources, according to the company.

Sky Italia will use Harmonic’s VOS software for OTT media processing in on-premises data centres integrated with the Sky Italia architecture, which leverages Kubernetes and a SMPTE 2022 uncompressed multicast video network.

“To ensure the success of our next-generation streaming services, delivery of exceptional video quality and the ability to quickly adapt to changes are critical factors. Harmonic’s cloud-native media processing software aligns with our choice of moving resources to Sky’s software-defined streaming infrastructure, while allowing us to be nimble. Using CAE, we can deliver stunning video to a larger group of subscribers, providing a better quality of experience to those in areas with challenging bandwidth availability,” said Gabriele Ubertini, director of technology engineering and innovation at Sky Italia.

“Sky Italia asked for a highly available and scalable streaming solution for outstanding video quality and state-of-the art ABR packaging. We went above and beyond in meeting these requirements,” said Ian Graham, senior vice president of international sales and video services at Harmonic.

“Having an elastic and always-up-to-date media workflow will give Sky Italia serious competitive advantages, enabling it to launch services faster and scale up seamlessly.”

Harmonic is exhibiting at IBC on Stand 1.B20.