MediaKind launches streaming platform for Microsoft Azure users

MediaKind Launches MK/IO, The New Home for Users of Microsoft Azure Media Services

FRISCO, TEXAS — MediaKind today unveiled MK/IO, a complete streaming solution built on Microsoft Azure that blends Emmy award-winning video quality and high reliability with the quality of experience enjoyed by tens of millions of viewers each week. MK/IO offers a video streaming canvas for app developers, video platforms, and anyone desiring to improve the experience they deliver to customers using video that looks better and scales beyond the boundaries of traditional streaming solutions.

MK/IO introduces a new dimension for users of Azure Media Services to build upon. Created over decades of cloud software development and video processing engineering and deployment for some of the largest and best-known media properties in the world, MK/IO offers video-on-demand (VOD) and Live streaming, encoding, and packaging services for files and live video streams, with digital rights management (DRM) support, and a native media player. Built on Azure cloud and integrated in Azure Marketplace, MK/IO offers application programming interface (API) parity and one-click asset migration for all users of Azure Media Services, including a simple and consistent pricing scheme.

Allen Broome, CEO of MediaKind, stated, “We pride ourselves on MediaKind’s heritage of quality and reliability led by innovation. As a strategic partner with Microsoft Azure, we have leveraged the power of Azure and its latest breakthroughs in generative AI, to develop MK/IO, a next-generation streaming solution. MediaKind’s robust video services and capabilities provide an elevated level of functionality to deliver an exceptional streaming experience with unmatched video quality to empower new video apps and services with advanced features and continuous innovation.”

“As one of our featured solution partners, I am pleased to announce the availability of MediaKind’s MK/IO platform that encompasses the entire range of Microsoft Azure Media Services capabilities,” said Simon Crownshaw, director, business strategy, Media & Communications at Microsoft. “Having partnered with MediaKind on the hugely successful NBA League Pass App project gives us confidence that Azure Media Services customers will be well served by MK/IO, and able to transition seamlessly to MediaKind’s new streaming platform.”

MK/IO has been designed to offer a seamless migration for Azure Media Services customers to the MK/IO video streaming platform and is available through the Azure Marketplace, integrating with Azure Storage, content delivery network (CDN) and billing, with a similar user experience, API parity, and familiar pricing that allows for content migration without the need for additional ingestion or processing.

Streaming of video assets previously generated with Azure Media Services, is fully supported at launch, along with MKPlayer, a video player equivalent to the Azure Media Services player. Video file encoding, live encoding, live to file, live streaming and passthrough of real-time messaging protocol (RTMP) and secure reliable transport (SRT) ingested events, including DRM protected streaming, will be progressively introduced on the MK/IO platform across multiple Azure regions.

Customers with advanced workflow requirements are encouraged to contact MediaKind to discuss dynamic advertising, advanced monetization, and other broadcast and professional streaming applications.