V-Nova announces PERSEUS video compression technology

V-Nova consortium launches ground breaking video compression

LONDON — V-Nova Ltd., a leading provider of video compression solutions, announced the public release of a number of ground breaking video compression products based on the industry advancing PERSEUS® technology.

The new products include a scalable end-to-end solution for mass-market adoption of live UHD, as well as other distribution products for UHD, HD, and SD video. PERSEUS rewrites the rules of compression, demonstrating in testing and live operations 2x – 3x average compression gains, at all quality levels, under practical real-time operating scenarios versus h.264, HEVC and JPEG2000.

PERSEUS has been developed and tested over the past five years within an Open Innovation consortium of over 20 global industry leaders including Broadcom, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), Intel, and Sky Italia. PERSEUS is currently offered in the form of appliances, embedded software and codec plug-ins.

“With PERSEUS we are able to shift the entire bitrate-quality curve toward the mass population, offering UHD quality at HD bitrates, HD at SD bitrates, and SD video at audio bitrates. This allows our partners to differentiate their products, increase market penetration, and provide new services. In particular, PERSEUS makes 4K commercially viable at scale, enables HD over 3G/4G mobile networks and makes video available to millions who do not yet have it. Most importantly, PERSEUS achieves this within currently available bandwidth and infrastructure,” states Guido Meardi, CEO & Founder, V-Nova. “This guarantees rapid, seamless deployment and an extremely high return on investment.”

“PERSEUS helps us solve challenges and create opportunities not currently addressable by existing compression solutions. Sky Italia has been working with V-Nova over the past years to refine and test the PERSEUS technology to ensure that it is industrially scalable and integrates seamlessly into the existing ecosystem and workflows. We are currently deploying it and are extremely satisfied with the results of this joint effort. PERSEUS is an extremely valuable asset for us,” comments Massimo Bertolotti, Head of Innovation & Engineering, Sky Italia.

“EBU has always played a key role in identifying innovations that are beneficial to our associates, and we have followed the development of PERSEUS products since its early stages. The step change in performance offered by PERSEUS opens many opportunities for new high-impact broadcast services that we are contributing to develop,” notes Puiu Dolea, Manager of Business Continuity & Special Projects at European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

“As the leader in one of the most important emerging markets, Tata Sky is constantly innovating its offering and evaluating new video technologies. Based on what we have seen, PERSEUS has the potential to significantly increase customer reach and service quality,” says Yigs Riza, CTO, Tata Sky.

Federico Faggin, Recipient of the 2009 US National Medal of Technology and Innovation, co-inventor of the silicon-gate MOS technology, the microprocessor, and the touch interface observed: “It is a rare opportunity to witness the emergence of a new technology with the power to fundamentally change multiple industries. PERSEUS is already demonstrating this potential. The combination of a proven, ground-breaking technology, an experienced team, and a collaborative Open Innovation approach with many outstanding partners, gives me confidence that the success of PERSEUS is all but inevitable.”

“PERSEUS impresses with exceptional video compression performance on standard server and PC hardware, including real-time UltraHD decoding or SD video at sub-audio bitrates on mobile devices. I am confident that with such performance PERSEUS is predestined to unlock great opportunities in multiple industries,” remarked Christian Morales, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Europe, Middle East, Africa of Intel Corporation.

“As V-Nova’s global fulfilment partner for enterprise-grade broadcasting servers, we are impressed by the robustness of the PERSEUS solution and the key role it plays in broadcasting, social innovation and cloud services,” says Kevin Eggleston, SVP Social Innovation & Global Industries, Hitachi Data Systems.

“Broadcom supports the PERSEUS compression standard, which offers an advanced tool to effect improvements in bitrate, quality and latency. Combined with Broadcom’s set-top box technology, PERSEUS compression can help enable more efficient HD transmissions and more widespread Ultra HD content to subscribers around the world,” says Rich Nelson, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Broadband & Connectivity Group, Broadcom Corporation.

“Perseus has the potential to revolutionize video. Its applicability is vast, both within broadcasting, as well as other industries including aerospace, defence, security, video conferencing, medical imaging and telematics, to name a few,” notes Philipp Nattermann, Director, McKinsey & Company. “It is also a remarkable example of entrepreneurship and Open Innovation, resulting from the joint effort of hundreds of people across the globe, spanning multiple industries and companies.”

“We are all very proud of PERSEUS and to be part of such an impressive global consortium that shares a common mission to improve human and machine communications, and open new commercial horizons through tangible improvements in compression. Together, we are solving real-world challenges, at all quality and bandwidth levels, using existing infrastructure and workflows,” closed Eric Achtmann, Executive Chairman & co-Founder, V-Nova. “We deeply thank all of our partners for their contributions and welcome those that will soon join. Together, we are making ‘The Impossible’ possible, and ‘The Possible’ more profitable.”