Elemental to Provide Video Processing for Comcast Xfinity
The Portland, Oregon-based video processing company Elemental Technologies announces today that it's been selected to provide all the video processing (including transcoding and image processing) for Comcast's Xfinity platform. Xfinity is the rebranded name for Comcast's Triple Play service, and it includes mobile apps and video-on-demand (via XfinityTV.com).
Comcast had been using a different vendor for its Xfinity video processing. However, it's experienced large growth in demand, thanks largely to its Apple iPad app, and the previous vendor couldn't scale to meet the increased needs, says Elemental.
The Xfinity platform currently requires processing of over 10,000 hours of on-demand content per month, a figure that Comcast expects to grow significantly in the coming months and years.
This isn't the first time that Elemental has found its growth tied to the increased use the iPad. The company put together the below chart to show how its own growth closely parallels iPad adoption.
The Xfinity assignment means that Elemental will be working in tandem with thePlatform (owned by Comcast), which is providing content management and organizing metadata for the Xfinity platform. In the workflow, Elemental will take a file, create 18 output files, and deliver it to the file system that handles DRM processing.
As part of today's news. Elemental is joining thePlatform's premier partner program, and the two companies will jointly market a combined solution for processing and managing large video libraries for IP-connected devices.
Elemental actually began working with Comcast nine months ago, although not for Xfinity. The rigorous multi-month testing that Comcast required before that project, running hundreds of thousands of files though Elemental, gave Elemental a leg up this time, as Comcast knew and trusted the company. Testing prior to this project was much shorter.
"Elemental is excited to work with thePlatform to accelerate the management and processing of Comcast's streaming assets to PCs, tablets, and mobile devices," says Sam Blackman, CEO and chairman of Elemental Technologies. "Comcast, and MSOs in general, are seeking solutions that allow them to cost-effectively scale their operations with minimal impact to existing operations. We're proud to be ahead of the curve in this area."
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