Broadpeak and Inca Networks have partnered to provide an IP video delivery solution to Minnesota-based Internet service provider Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC). The subscriber management and user experiences are powered by Espial's (TSX:ESP) Elevate Cloud IPTV platform, which is a TV-as-a-service solution designed to let operators offer IPTV and app-based TV services. AMT served as the reseller on the project.
"HBC operates an advanced fiber-optic network that delivers gigabit broadband, feature-rich telephone, and video services with a selection of more than 300 channels, VOD, and extensive local high school and college sporting events produced by HBC Studios. Recently, we deployed IP ABR delivery for its ability to support OTT video, amongst other benefits," said Jim Kronebusch, vice president of technology and engineering at Hiawatha Broadband Communications. "Broadpeak and Inca Networks provided us with a future-rich solution for preparing and distributing video content via IP applications."
HBC is using Broadpeak's BkS350 Origin and Packager to ingest live video channels sent by the Inca adaptive-bit-rate (ABR) transcoder 3840. The ABR transcoder 3840 uses Inca Networks' hardware transcoding engine to transcode MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC video sources into frame-aligned, multibit-rate outputs in MPEG-4 AVC.
Upon reception from the Inca ABR transcoder 3840, the BkS350 packages the video content in the requested ABR format (i.e., HLS or MPEG-DASH) and sends it to Broadpeak's BkS400 video cache server for streaming to subscribers. Broadpeak's BkM100 supervises the BkS350 and BkS400 servers in addition to managing the streaming requests and redirecting them to the servers. Broadpeak's software-based solutions were deployed on hardware provided by HBC via virtualized machines.
Espial, Inca Networks and Broadpeak all will be exhibiting at the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta.