Encoding.com offers Beamr Content-Adaptive Bitrate service in the Cloud

Encoding.com Partners with Beamr to Provide Best-in-Class Content-Adaptive Bitrate Service in the Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO — Encoding.com, the world’s most trusted cloud media processing service, has partnered with Beamr, the leading video technology and image science software company, to offer Beamr’s Content-Adaptive Bitrate (CABR) encoding and optimization technology to Encoding.com customers. The service will be added to Encoding.com’s broad and growing suite of microservices for powering high-volume file-based VOD workflows in the cloud.

With traditional encoding techniques, high-resolution video such as 4K HDR requires tremendous amounts of bandwidth to deliver optimum viewing quality across a range of OTT devices. That can result in buffering, high CDN, and storage costs. Beamr’s CABR technology changes this equation by enabling the highest picture quality with up to 50% fewer bits for AVC/H.264 and HEVC/H.265 video streams that allow for more efficient streaming and reduced operational costs.

“Many encoding vendors boast content-aware technology, but Beamr is the only one with nearly 50 patents granted for CABR,” said Greggory Heil, founder and chief encoding officer at Encoding,com. “Beamr’s solution is fast, fully automatic, and safe to use on all content types since it performs a human-like visual check of every frame to validate video quality. As a best-of-breed solution, Beamr’s CABR technology is truly ground-breaking and a great addition to the Encoding.com suite of services available through our API.”

Video is generally compressed based on settings that apply to the least common denominator of the visual content, leading to the possibility of complex scenes displaying poor video quality and simple scenes containing more bits than necessary. Unlike other content-adaptive solutions, which operate only on a per title, per scene, or per GOP level, Beamr’s CABR technology adapts the encoder settings per frame to preserve video quality and reduce the bitrate. By adapting encoding parameters frame by frame, Beamr CABR is able to achieve higher visual quality and lower bitrates when compared to competing content-adaptive encoding technologies.

High-volume content creators and video distributors that routinely incur high CDN and storage costs can realize significant savings by employing the Beamr CABR technology as part of a cloud-based Encoding.com workflow. Beamr’s CABR technology supports next-generation video formats, including Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG), HDR10, and Dolby Vision, as well as resolutions up to 8K. Supported codecs include H.264 and HEVC. With Beamr CABR, users can encode broadcast quality 4K HEVC video under 10 Mbps, and 1080p video as low as 1.5 Mbps.

While employing Beamr’s CABR technology introduces latency to the encoding workflow, combining CABR with Encoding.com’s Ludicrous Mode microservice counters this by significantly accelerating HD and UHD workflows. The ultra-fast processing technology works by splitting large source video files into small chunks and then performing all of the transcoding and packaging in parallel before stitching the chunks back together again.

“Encoding.com is relied upon for cloud processing by many of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies, making them a perfect partner for Beamr,” said Eli Lubitch, President at Beamr. “Both of our companies are committed to providing the best-possible service to broadcasters, MSOs and streaming content providers. By using Beamr’s CABR content-adaptive technology within the Encoding.com workflow, video services are guaranteed extraordinary quality and user experience at bitrates that are unrivaled.”