Elemental powers IP content delivery for NET in Brazil

End-to-end software solution includes multi-bitrate video processing, just-in-time packaging and encryption to enable IP video delivery in Brazil

PORTLAND, Ore./RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Elemental Technologies, the leader in software-defined video solutions, today announced that it is providing a full suite of live video encoding and packaging solutions to enable NET, a leading provider of pay TV and broadband Internet access services in Brazil, to offer additional services and increase content variety. The platform allows NET to deliver 40 IP-based channels to multiscreen devices and hybrid set-top boxes, which are also handling multiple HD channels broadcasted in traditional DVB technology. This represents the first time NET is using both DVB and IP for live broadcasting services, including a dedicated experimental transmission in 4K in conjunction with one of the world’s largest sports events.

Multiple premier broadcasters, pay TV providers and sports programmers plan to use Elemental video processing and delivery software to power the streaming of this major event.

NET is part of America Movil, the largest telecom service provider in Latin America and the fourth biggest globally in terms of equity subscribers. In Brazil, the group also holds Embratel, with strong leadership in the B2B segment, and Claro, one of the biggest mobile companies in the country. The group is a leading local player in pay TV, fixed broadband and mobile data.

Additionally, NET is using AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Service’s serverless compute offering, to insert static images into broadcast channels during “blackout” periods, when there is no event or content is unavailable. The Lambda function inserts a static image with a custom message into the video stream during such periods, which keeps viewers informed and engaged during event transitions.

“We wanted to give our subscribers the freedom to watch whatever they choose, at home or on the go. From events that generate massive simultaneous audiences to long tail programming, mixing broadcast, cloud and IP technologies” said Marcio Carvalho, Marketing and Products Director for NET. “Our video platform has to scale rapidly to provide as many streams as our subscribers demand, with quality, flexibility and complete reliability. Elemental demonstrated to us that its solutions could deliver this.”

One of Brazil’s largest pay TV content producers, Globosat – which also uses Elemental video processing solutions – is sending 40 raw channels over IP to NET. Embratel provides the network backbone for channel transport and also the cloud infrastructure, where the signals are transcoded to multi-bitrate services using Elemental Live virtual machines instances. After encryption, channels are ready for distribution over the NET content delivery network (CDN) to hybrid set-top boxes and multiscreen devices.

Elemental Live is also being used to burn in the SporTV application logo into signals at the appropriate resolution for multiscreen delivery. For additional workflow streamlining, the Elemental Delta video delivery platform is being used for just-in-time packaging functionality to create streams as they are required, for many different type of devices and platforms.

“Host nations of major global events have particularly high expectations of live television coverage. At Elemental, we are pleased to be involved with multiple broadcast, pay TV and OTT customers supporting the major sports events in Brazil,” said Dan Marshall, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations for Elemental. “The same technology from Elemental is already powering services globally, day after day, year after year.”