ATX Networks has introduced an upgrade to its MD16 bulk media distribution gateway intended to enable service providers to offer hotels, hospitals, universities, apartments and other commercial customers streaming media capabilities. The new MD16 OTT streaming blade is designed to enable over-the-top (OTT) video anywhere within the commercial enterprise facility on any device, including smartphones, tablets and PCs.
The ATX streaming media blade is designed to allow guests and residents to view live, linear TV programming on personal devices, such as smartphones, tablets and PCs, without the requirement to install multi-rack solutions with standalone encoders and web servers.
"ATX continues to empower pay TV operators with the capabilities they require to reinvigorate their commercial and enterprise business strategies," said Andrew Isherwood, chief technology and strategy officer, Media Distribution, at ATX. "Our market-leading MD16s equipped with the new streaming blade will allow hotels, universities, hospitals and MDUs to offer their clientele a broadcast TV experience on their mobile devices."
The MD16 OTT streaming blade enables universities, for example, to offer campus-wide broadcast TV on mobile devices anywhere WiFi is available. In hotel, apartment and hospital settings, the streaming blade allows guests, residents and patients to watch live TV on their own devices.
The new streaming media blade consumes one slot in the MD16. A single blade is capable of streaming 24 HD channels to as many as 250 devices. Content streamed from the MD16 is viewable on Apple (HLS) and Android (MPEG-DASH) devices. The streaming media blade interfaces with the existing WiFi Internet-delivery infrastructure and includes an integrated HTML-5 Web server. Near real-time encoding capabilities reduce delays. End users play the video in their web browsers, eliminating the need to install a separate app.
The integrated streaming blade is intended to reduce on-premises bandwidth requirements, as fewer residents and guests will need to connect to Internet-based streaming services using external servers.
"The addition of an integrated streaming blade makes an already compelling value proposition even better," said Isherwood. "The MD16 makes it easy to deliver television programming to mobile devices wherever people congregate, including universities, offices and sporting events."
The MD16 streaming blade is slated to be available in calendar Q3, 2019.