MediaKind helps Síminn deliver English Premier League coverage in UHD

Saturday, September 14th, 2019
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Síminn selects MediaKind to deliver UHD coverage of the English Premier League to viewers in Iceland

  • MediaKind’s Contribution and Distribution technologies maintain the integrity and secure onward distribution of Síminn’s live coverage of the English Premier League
  • Deployment includes MK RX1 solution, a low latency, multi-codec, multi service professional decoder and MK Director, a powerful control and conditional access management software product
  • Close collaboration with Premier League Productions ensures a pre-tested and configured solution that delivers the best possible viewing and audio experience for Síminn’s audiences

FRISCO, TEXAS — MediaKind, a global media technology leader, has been selected by Síminn, the Icelandic broadcaster, to protect and deliver its live high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) broadcasts of football matches from the English Premier League to fans across Iceland.

The deployment will include MK RX1, a multi-codec, multi-service professional decoder that is designed to maintain the integrity of valuable, high quality, content across contribution networks, with the lowest latency in the media industry. The initial application is to enable Síminn to decode high bit-rate UHDTV services, maintaining high video quality for content manipulation use cases across the entire video delivery chain.

The deployment also includes MK Director, a control and conditional access management software product, prohibiting unauthorized access and managing the primary distribution of this highly valuable live sports content to Síminn.

MK RX1’s software and application-based design will allow Síminn to decode up to 12 live feeds at once, before distributing them via MK Director. The low latency solution ensures content is delivered to audiences as close to real time as possible, across multiple devices. The versatile and flexible nature of MediaKind’s RX1 applications offers a multitude of different processing functions and capabilities which can be provided as a traditional receiver appliance or as software to be executed on a commercial off the shelf (COTS) platform, including public or private cloud instances.

Bjarki Jónsson, Manager, TV Department, Síminn, said: “Live sports coverage has a unique ability to captivate the imaginations of viewers all over the world and we want to give Icelandic fans the best possible, high quality experience of the beautiful game. By partnering with MediaKind and using their industry leading RX1 solution, we will deliver the best football moments as they happen in the highest picture quality with the lowest latency.”

Damien Montessuit, Regional Head, EMEA, said: “We are excited to work alongside Premier League Productions and Síminn to enable outstanding, live UHD matchday experiences for football fans across Iceland. Through the deployment of our contribution and distribution solutions, we can provide greater flexibility, superior low latency and highly advanced encryption to optimize the value of Siminn’s live coverage of one of the world’s most popular sporting leagues.”

MK RX1 can decode UHD, HEVC, HD HEVC, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 AVC compressed streams, whether 4:2:0 or 4:2:2, 8-bit or 10-bit and produce uncompressed outputs via a range of outputs. Different combinations of codec can be utilized simultaneously to maintain flexibility for onward processing. MK Director is capable of offering advanced 128-bit encryption – coupled with forensic watermarking technology – to deter and help prevent piracy of high value content from a broadcaster or content owner’s distribution network, as well as better protecting subsequent copies or streams.