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VBrick Continues to Build on a Long History of Innovation in Enterprise Video

By Steve Kossar – January 10, 2012

Today, VBrick announced the 9000 Series Encoding Appliance.  With this announcement, VBrick again sets the performance bar for what a network video appliance should be.  The 9000 delivers an encode budget of double the nearest competitive portable appliance.  Two 1080p60 channels can be encoded and streamed simultaneously.  Quad channel devices encode four channels of HD video at the same time.  Blade deployments provide 44 channels of HD encode in a single chassis.

This isn’t the first time VBrick has set the encoding bar.  For the past 14 years, VBrick has been defining the world of encoding and Enterprise IP Video.

We invented the network video appliance with the first MPEG 1 encoding and decoding device.  At that time, few envisioned the explosive growth of video outside teleconferencing and the broadcast industry, or even what networks would be able to carry video.  Our first device had ATM, Ethernet — even HDLC Synchronous Serial interfaces for T1 and E1 lines.  Ethernet was of course a huge winner, and the age of enterprise video was born.

We followed with a rich string of network video technologies, each of which enhanced the value of video as an effective communications tool.  MPEG 2 encoding and decoding appliances moved network video from VCR quality to DVD quality.  VBrick’s MPEG 4 part 2 appliances led to the first glimpses of live video on the Internet.  This was followed by the first complete video system with players, set-top boxes (STBs), video-on-demand servers and a viewing portal.  The complete solution enabled organizations large and small to effectively deliver video to everyone.

VBrick then brought to market the industry’s first — and still the only — hardware-based Window Media encoder.  It led to an explosion of video deployments in school systems, corporations and government agencies, spurring copycat encoders based on PCs with a capture card.  Windows Media, with the rich ecosystem of video server and player software, made video commonplace and ushered in the modern era of enterprise video.

Fast forward to 2012 with the launch of the 9000 Series.

The chart below describes several 9000 Series “technology firsts” including two 1080p60 or four 1080p30 encodes, with baseline-, main- and high-profile quality.

The first release of appliances on the 9000 Series platform includes 1, 2, and 4 channel devices, with SD only versions in addition to the HD encoders.  Appliances, as well as blades for VBrick’s Rack Mount Chassis are available.  These are the first products in a new line of devices built on an entirely new architecture.  Stay tuned for more exciting announcements.

Posted in Encoding, h.264.

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VBrick Systems and SCTV17 Partner to Stream Republican Candidate Town Halls

By Greg Zweig – January 4, 2012

Salem, NH. – January 4, 2012 -   Enterprise IP video leader VBrick Systems and Salem Community Television (SCTV17) are teaming up to stream upcoming Republican Candidate Town Halls in Salem, New Hampshire.  Coming off yesterday’s historically tight Iowa caucus results, the race in New Hampshire is heating up.  New Hampshire voters go to the polls next Tuesday so candidates have less than a week to sharpen their message and energize undecided voters.  SCTV17 is providing local residents and a larger national audience the opportunity to watch how candidates address New Hampshire and the Nation’s most pressing issues.  Mitt Romney’s Town Hall is the first to be streamed on Thursday, January 5th at 9:00 am EST.

Salem Community Television is levering the power of VBOSS, VBrick’s Online Streaming Service, to broadcast the event live.  New Hampshire residents as well as audiences world-wide can easily watch from their PC.  Media outlets can also embed the video stream on to their own websites to make it easy for their audiences to participate in the event.

The Romney Town Hall will start between 8:00 – 9:00 EST on January 5, 2012. We will keep you updated as the time is confirmed  Additional candidate appearances are expected in coming days.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH
(only online during the event)

About VBrick

VBrick is the leader in Enterprise IP Video, with over 9,000 corporate, education and government customers and 60,000 installations worldwide.  VBrick solutions work over standard IP networks and the Internet to enable the creation, publishing and distribution of rich media content. Our comprehensive streaming solutions are used in a wide range of live and on-demand applications including meeting and event broadcasts, employee collaboration, distributed learning, digital signage, TV distribution, and video surveillance.  Headquartered in Wallingford, CT, VBrick’s products and services are available through industry-leading value-added resellers. For more information, visit www.vbrick.com.

About Salem Community Television

SCTV is committed to the ideals of building bridges in the community by using public access programming to serve the residents of Salem, NH. SCTV-17 will be a central conduit for local information using a multimedia approach, via the television channel, bulletin boards, web sites, RSS Subscriptions, Podcasts, and Video On Demand.

Posted in Mitt Romney, VBOSS.

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Top Ten Technology Considerations When Deploying Video in an Education Environment

By Greg Zweig – November 3, 2011

This past month, VBrick has been working hand-in-hand with many of our education customers including  Zeeland Public Schools and Pulaski Public Schools to successfully kick off the 2011/2012 school year.  In many instances, schools around the country are rolling out 1:1 education programs.  These programs arm students with wireless technologies, like iPads, so each student can learn at his or her own pace and ability level.

Following are what we have learned to be the “Top Ten Technology Considerations When Deploying Multimedia in 1:1 Education Environments.”

 TOP TEN TECHNOLOGY CONSIDERATIONS WHEN DEPLOYING VIDEO IN AN EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT

10.  Ensure that your technology plan includes provisions to give students access to school content from home, not just inside the school building

9.        Ensure that your technology plan includes a plan for students to create and share their own content; in addition to allowing teachers to share content with students

8.        Plan workshops to “teach-the-teachers” how to best embrace new 1:1 technologies

7.        Review data network designs to be sure they account for increased bandwidth requirements; driven by greater video access.

6.        Ensure students realize that in a digital world, everything is recorded and time-stamped.

5.        Reevaluate your wireless network to see if it can support large numbers of tablet computers, all accessing video at the same time.  .

4.        Leverage multicast capabilities wherever possible to reduce bandwidth.

3.        Appreciate that different types of endpoints (especially mobile endpoints) are often best served by different video formats and different bit rates.

2.        Recognize that multimedia content often needs to be segregated based on a student’s age or interest.  The same video content should not be available to everyone.

1.        Ensure you are investing in solutions that ultimately deliver a complete video content strategy; delivering a better student experience at a lower price per pupil

More information is also available in our White Paper entitled “How Video is Reshaping the Classroom.” Download it Here

Posted in Education.

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Not the iPhone 5 but We’ll Take 1080p Video!

By Mary Maguire – October 5, 2011

After all the rumors and anticipation, Apple announced the iPhone 4S.  Not quite the anticipated iPhone 5 – but we are still excited that Apple also believes that great quality, real-time, mobile video is important.  The iPhone 4S will ship with iOS 5 complete with HD 1080p for video capture and image stabilization.

Why is this important?

One of the main reasons video has had spotty acceptance within corporations is because it is often out of reach of the average employee.  Video has typically been left to the corporate IT expert of  self-professed department techie.

While Android devices have had HD quality video for nearly a year, Apple is the thought leader in the mobile space and their decision to embrace HD mobile capture reflects the coming of age of personal video creation and distribution.    Now, most employees will have HD-quality mobile capture solutions on in the palm of their hand and the market will be driving tools to make it even easier to capture and edit video.

Now the corporate challenge shifts from “how do we get HD quality video”  to  “how do we best store, manage and distribute video to provide better communications across the enterprise – to all employees and constituents — both inside and outside of the firewall.”  Let’s see how this would work in a real-life scenario.  Consider the real estate professional.   Now, for the first time, a real estate agent can capture the pure excitement and enthusiasm of their client moving into their first home.  Nothing planned.  Nothing staged.  No camera man.  No studio.  That HD-quality testimonial can go straight from the  real estate’s mobile phone to be stored and managed in the marketing department’s testimonial video portal,  then distributed to other agents, clients and prospects no matter where they are located.

As you see, the ability to store, manage and distribute video — well that’s what we do here at VBrick so you can appreciate why we see Apple’s announcement as further proof of where video is going.

Posted in Mobile.

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We Remember 9/11

By Doug Howard – September 9, 2011

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the attempt to attack the Capital – events that changed the fabric of the United States forever.  Everyone at VBrick would like to take a moment to remember the people who died that day, and their families and friends who continue to miss their loved ones.  We also would like to pay tribute to our troops, military families and first responders who continue to serve to keep us safe.

 

 

 

Posted in News.

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VBrick Receives Public Sector Honor from Microsoft

By Garth Leach – August 10, 2011

This has been an exciting summer for VBrick! First, Frost & Sullivan recognized VBrick as the global leader in the video webcasting solutions market, then we won the HP AllianceONE Partner of the Year Award for the innovations we made with our Distributed Media Engine.  Now Microsoft has bestowed on us the honor of being one of their Public Sector Partners of the Year.

Wow! Thank You Microsoft.

We have worked tirelessly creating IP video solutions that help the public sector fulfill their missions, including keeping the public informed, increasing strong internal communications, even securely distributing television. However the reason Microsoft is honoring us is because on a separate, but equally dedicated path, we have been creating IP solutions that work seamlessly in Microsoft’s unified communications environments. This provides organizations, who have Microsoft Lync, OCS, or SharePoint, the ability to integrate live and on-demand streaming video directly into their communications tools.  Combining our mission-critical applications within Microsoft’s UC products has been a win-win for customers, and we thank Microsoft for recognizing it.  VBrick’s COO, John Shaw, shares a few comments about the award.

 

We also wanted to take a moment to congratulate the three other companies who won Microsoft U.S. Public Sector Partner of the Year awards; they were DELL, HP/EDS, and Hitachi.  Congratulations guys!

Here is the official press release.

 VBrick Systems Honored as Microsoft Public Sector Partner of the Year 
Award Recognizes Outstanding Use of Microsoft Technology on Behalf of Public Missions

 Wallingford, CT — August 10, 2011 — VBrick Systems today announced its recognition as the 2011 Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) U.S. Public Sector Partner of the Year.  The award honors VBrick’s innovative use of Microsoft technology.  Winners and finalists were nominated and selected by Microsoft’s U.S. Public Sector team working throughout the nation.     

“Our partner community plays a vital role in delivering technology solutions that meet the unique needs of customers across government, education and healthcare,” said Vince Menzione, general manager of U.S. Public Sector Partner Strategy.  “VBrick has shown incredible dedication to serving the public sector, and the company’s recognition as a Partner of the Year is well deserved.”

Organizations across the public sector — especially in government — are benefitting from the Microsoft/VBrick partnership.  Government departments and agencies are using Microsoft’s OCS and Lync with VBrick’s enterprise IP video streaming solution to view and collaborate on executive broadcasts as well as TV/surveillance broadcasts from their OCS/Lync client.  The combined solution is highly scalable, offering the ability to connect thousands of users across the globe.  It also delivers clear return on investment with one customer’s costs savings estimated at $500,000 per year.

“For Microsoft to name VBrick as the Public Sector Partner of the Year — an award that places us at the forefront of the Unified Communications industry — is quite an honor,” said Doug Howard, CEO of VBrick Systems.  “We thank Microsoft for this Award and we look forward to continuing to build on our strong partnership to deliver the types of video-enabled collaboration solutions required by both the public and private sectors,” he added.

“Our partners play an essential role in helping customers leverage Microsoft technology to increase efficiency, improve service delivery, and reduce operational costs,” said Greg Myers, Microsoft Vice President of Federal.  “The work that VBrick has delivered over the past year is an example of what can be accomplished when great technology is combined with deep market expertise.”

VBrick is the world’s largest provider of enterprise IP streaming video solutions to corporate, education, healthcare and government customers. VBrick supports a breadth of video-enabled applications including executive broadcasts, training and marketing programs, digital signage and IP Television distribution.

The Microsoft Partner Program is designed for all partners who develop and market solutions based on Microsoft platforms, provide consulting or technical services on Microsoft systems, or recommend Microsoft technology purchases.  Microsoft partners include consulting services providers, independent software vendors (ISVs), independent hardware vendors, large account resellers (LARs),

original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), support providers, system integrators, system builders, training providers, value-added resellers and value-added providers.

Posted in News, UC.

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Tackling The Video Explosion In Government – AOL Government

By Garth Leach – July 26, 2011

Over at AOL Government there is a really good article about the use of video in the government and the rolle that VBrick plays.

Tackling The Video Explosion In Government by Steve Charles
We’ve all heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But suppose we speak those 1,000 words at a moderate pace and demonstrate what we are talking about in a five to seven-minute video? According to both common sense and numerous studies, the learning opportunity and communications impact of video are clearly superior.

Read the whole article here…

Posted in News.

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New job for IT: Video content manager

By Garth Leach – July 18, 2011

Computerworld Magazine recently interviewed and published a story on one of VBrick’s customers, National Naval Medical Center, to discuss the use and management of video in the enterprise. Great article!

“Video is not a fringe format anymore. Increasingly, information workers consume video in the workplace for training purposes, technical help, and real-time communication with colleagues and customers,” according to a recent Forrester Research report.

The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., is fully aligned with theYouTube generation. Its young military patients can access videos and hospital information on demand from 1,400 TV screens in hospital rooms and across the campus. Doctors and nurses can watch department-produced training videos during the midnight shift on any of 8,000 desktops in its many buildings.

Read the whole article over at computerworld.com

Posted in Uncategorized.

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VBrick Systems Wins HP AllianceONE Partner of the Year Award

By VBrick Systems – June 28, 2011

Company’s Distributed Media Engine Recognized for Innovation in Enterprise IP Video Distribution

Enterprise IP video leader VBrick Systems today announced it has won the 2011 HP AllianceONE Partner of the Year Award in the HP Converged Infrastructure Solutions, Education category. VBrick won the award on the strength of its innovative Distributed Media Engine (DME). The DME delivers the industry’s first comprehensive Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN), enabling multi-site enterprises to efficiently direct live and on-demand rich media content to a distributed workforce. VBrick was announced as an award winner earlier this month at HP DISCOVER Americas.

VBrick’s DME is one of the first IP video solutions that has been tested and certified by HP to seamlessly integrate with HP Networking switches. Leveraging the HP Advanced Services zl Module as a platform, the VBrick DME offers enterprise customers a compelling way to manage streaming video, ensuring ubiquitous access to meeting and event broadcasts, training and education activities as well as better access to on-demand content for enterprise YouTube services.

The DME improves network availability by providing redistribution of video streams closer to the edge of the network and closer to the end user. It also transforms video to the latest formats, enabling staff to watch broadcasts, training and other video from popular smartphones and media tablets as well as PCs and TVs. The user benefits from an improved experience and ultimately derives more value from the communications.

“This recognition from HP is further validation of our continued commitment to driving unparalleled innovation in the enterprise IP video streaming industry, and ensuring our customers and partners realize the highest value from our solutions,” said John Shaw, chief operating officer, VBrick Systems. “The launch of our DME–and our close relationship with HP–has come at an opportune time, as many industry analysts predict 2011 will be the year that smartphone and tablet sales eclipse PCs. And as many users consume video on these devices, we’re fully prepared to support them with world-class technology that ensures a consistently high-quality experience.”

“To manage the changing demands of their customers, organizations have to accelerate time to market and time to business value,” said Duncan Campbell, vice president, Converged Infrastructure, HP. “HP, with partners like VBrick, helps break down rigid IT silos with infrastructure specifically engineered to drive out cost and provide the foundation for agile service delivery.” Continued…

Posted in News, Press Release.

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VBrick Introduces one of the Industry’s Only Purpose-Built Encoders that Supports Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming

By VBrick Systems – June 14, 2011

VBrick Systems’ Solution for IIS Smooth Streaming Powers Robust, High-Quality IP Video Performance for Enterprise Users
Company Introduces one of the Industry’s Only Purpose-Built Encoders that Supports Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming

InfoComm 2011
Booth #3875
WALLINGFORD, Conn.– Enterprise IP video leader VBrick Systems today announced that its award winning line of H.264 Encoding Appliances now includes Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming capabilities that power quality IP video playback on PCs, smartphones and other devices—regardless of network bandwidth, available screen resolution or processor capability. Today’s announcement strongly differentiates VBrick as one of the only providers with a purpose-built encoding appliance integrated into the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Media Platform. VBrick’s line of H.264 Encoding Appliances will be demonstrated this week at InfoComm in Orlando, Florida, Booth #3875.

“IIS Smooth Streaming provides an end user viewing experience that will further advance adoption of IP video-based collaboration”

“VBrick has made a simply amazing encoder,” said Ismayeel Syed, Chief Technical Architect, Aviva – the world’s 6th largest insurance company. “After comparison with several other Encoding Appliances, including some intensive head-to-head evaluation, I can confidently say that the VBrick H.264 encoding appliance is by far the best portable IIS Smooth Streaming encoding solution in terms of performance, robustness and overall capabilities.” Continued…

Posted in Press Release.

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