Telestream Releases Episode 6 Video Encoding Software
Next-generation encoder adds industry-first One Click Clustering with integrated file sharing, new graphical user interface, WebM format support, and automatic uploading to YouTube – enabling faster, more efficient, high-quality video transcoding
Nevada City, Calif.(24 Sep 2010)
Telestream, a leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, announced release of Episode 6, the only cross-platform, multiformat software encoder on the market that offers scalability from the desktop to a workgroup or server cluster. Episode Version 6 brings industry-first One Click Clustering™ with integrated file sharing to content owners, professional videographers, and post-production facilities. This powerful new feature allows users to easily pool resources and share encoding tasks across multiple computers in a mixed environment of PC and Mac computers. A new, intuitive user interface with graphical workflow builder simplifies the encoding process. New deployment capabilities in version 6, including automatic uploading to YouTube, enable greater audience reach.
“Setting up a cluster couldn’t be easier,” reports Brent Kirsten, Owner and Creative Director at digitalcore, a San Francisco video production and post facility. “With Episode’s simple clustering features, it’s effortless to maximize our horsepower when we need it. We’ve been waiting for a solution like this for our SAN; it will save us hours of time.”
Dylan Armajani, System Administrator at New York-based 24-hour lifestyle network, Plum TV concurs, “We love Episode 6 and plan to deploy it in all nine of our locations. It is an incredibly feature-rich and robust program with a straight-forward user interface that even novice users can operate with very little training. Within 10 minutes of receiving the product, I had our watch folders delivering numerous different encodes: to our CDN for web playback, to our video playout servers for broadcast, and another straight to YouTube. From one watch folder I could push a single video to all of our various destinations.”
New video format support includes WebM, the web media format, based on the VP8 open source video codec, as well as high-quality Main Concept H.264 and MPEG formats. Because of Episode’s high-quality 10-bit processing, Telestream has been licensed to distribute the Apple ProRes codec, which enables native decoding and encoding in the Mac version of Episode 6right out of the box.
New deployment capabilities allow users to automatically deliver completed content using standard network delivery protocols, and upload content to popular video sharing websites like YouTube. All these new capabilities are easily accessible through the new user interface and graphical workflow builder, which allows users to visually create and view the steps in their encoding process. Video compressionist Jan Ozer describes the new user interface as “brilliant” in his Episode 6 video tour which can be found on StreamingMedia.com.
Episode is an all-in-one video encoder that provides extensive format support for post-production, new media, web and mobile encoding environments. Best-in-class video processing, full 10-bit support and hands-on control with frame-by-frame video preview allow users to generate excellent picture quality. For time-critical workflows, parallel encoding and unique Split-and-Stitch® technology allow users to distribute files across a cluster of Mac or PC servers or saturate the processing power of a single machine to achieve remarkable encoding speeds.
Pricing and Availability
Episode 6 is now available for online purchase at www.telestream.net as well as from Telestream’s worldwide network of resellers and distributors. Episode 6 features three models. Episode, priced at $495, includes support for Flash 8 & 9, H.264, WebM, Windows Media, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1, DV, 3GPP and much more, plus One-Click Clustering with integrated file sharing, processing of one job at a time, and unlimited batch processing. Episode Pro, priced at $995, adds support for high-end professional formats plus parallel encoding of two jobs at a time. Episode Engine, priced at $3,995, adds unlimited parallel encoding plus Split-and-Stitch distributed encoding for high-volume throughput at maximum speed. The upgrade fee from Episode v5 to Episode v6 is $145, and from Episode Pro v5 to Episode Pro v6 is $295. For more information or a free trial, visit www.telestream.net.