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Elemental Announces Breakthrough New Video Processing System That Harnesses the Power of GPUs for Encoding and Transcoding

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 May 2009, 07:00 CDT

Massively parallel video processing technology radically lower costs and increases performance for encoding and transcoding online, mobile and on-demand content.

PORTLAND, Ore., May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Elemental Technologies, the leading provider of massively parallel video processing solutions, today announced the beta release of Elemental Server, the first video processing system based on graphics processing units (GPUs). By harnessing the power of parallel processors like never before in a server appliance, Elemental Server will enable broadcasters, studios, online video platforms, and major web video publishers to quickly and cost-effectively encode and transcode video for delivery to consumers wherever they want to watch it--from HDTVs to Web browsers to mobile phones.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090520/SF20130LOGO)

Elemental Server leverages massively parallel GPUs to deliver the performance of 7 dual quad-core CPU-only servers for a fraction of the price. Not only does Elemental Server cost less than half of comparable solutions, it uses significantly less energy and requires less physical space, taking up only two rack units(2RU). Elemental Server is particularly well-suited for the high-definition content that consumers are increasingly demanding--the system easily handles multiple HD resolution inputs and outputs, delivering faster than real-time transcoding for multiple simultaneous 1080p streams.

"The digital video market is growing exponentially with the hundreds of formats in demand for devices ranging from mobile phones to HDTVs, and that growth is placing increasing pressure on enterprise encoding and transcoding infrastructure," said Sam Blackman, CEO and chairman of Elemental Technologies. "Elemental Server radically transforms the cost equation for video encoding, increasing the value of online and mobile video overall, enabling enterprises to save money, energy and time by fully utilizing the power of massively parallel computing to deliver high quality video in a wide range of formats."

"Online video growth has exploded, and consumers today expect the highest quality video experience possible," said Tareef Kawaf, senior vice president of engineering and operations at Brightcove. "As a result, we continue to expand our platform and form new partnerships to meet the growing demands of online video publishers. We see Elemental Server as a cost efficient and high quality GPU-accelerated transcoding solution that will benefit Brightcove and our customers now and in the future."

Available in beta for select customers now, Elemental Server is easy to install, configure and maintain. The product supports REST and XML interfaces for fast integration into existing workflows, including those that deliver content via common Internet streaming technologies including the Adobe(R) Flash(R) Platform and Microsoft Silverlight.

"We are pleased that Elemental has created such a powerful product that is compatible with the Adobe Flash Platform," said Laurel Reitman, senior product manager for Flash Media Solutions at Adobe. "The combination of Adobe Flash technology - the number one solution for video on the Web - and cost-effective real-time HD transcoding powered by solutions like Elemental Server will let publishers offer high-quality video experiences at a cost that makes online video an even more attractive strategy for media companies and marketers."

Elemental Server will offer enterprise users:

• Price Performance - Lower encoding costs significantly by achieving the performance of more than 7 dual quad-core CPU-only servers in a highly cost-efficient 2RU system, as well as reducing space and energy consumption.
• Ease-of-Use - Install and integrate encoding servers quickly and easily without the complicated problems of other video processing systems.
• Scalability - Easily scale server farms by combining multiple Elemental Servers with a shared job queue that automatically distributes encoding jobs.
• Quality - Deliver the highest quality encoding for H.264 and VC-1 with advanced encoding algorithms.
• High Transcoding Throughput - Transcode up to four high definition 1920x1080p videos simultaneously in real-time or produce up to 32 simultaneous 480x270 videos faster than real time.

Detailed information about Elemental Server can be found at http://www.elementaltechnologies.com/Products/Server.

About Elemental

Elemental Technologies is the leading provider of massively parallel processing solutions for video applications. Using off-the-shelf, programmable graphics processing units (GPUs) for compute-intensive video processing and conversion tasks, Elemental's products are ideally suited for a variety of video applications including consumer media processing, professional video editing and Internet video processing. Founded in 2006, Elemental is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. To learn more about Elemental, visit www.elementaltechnologies.com.

SOURCE Elemental Technologies

Source: PR Newswire

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