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VEMS Mystro Receives 2013 Unified Communications TMC Labs Innovation Award

By VBrick Systems – June 18, 2013

VEMS Mystro, our video streaming platform,  has been named a 2013 Unified Communications (UC) TMC Labs Innovation Award winner presented by mystro multi platformsINTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

“We’re thrilled that TMC Labs has chosen to recognize VEMS Mystro as one of the world’s most innovative communications solutions,” said Shelly Heiden, chief executive officer, VBrick.  “This award exemplifies the fact that VEMS Mystro is one of the leading, most powerful video streaming solutions for enterprises, government, healthcare and educational institutions.”

VEMS Mystro allows organizations to manage, store and display video content to thousands of users simultaneously, regardless of where they may be or the device they may be using, including desktops, smartphones and tablets. VEMS Mystro supports live feeds and recorded playback, and provides centralized access to stored content, making it easy to search for and play selected videos.

Learn more about VEMS Mystro.

 

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Posted in Award, Press Release, VEMS.

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VBrick Awarded U.S. Army Certificate of Networthiness

By VBrick Systems – May 24, 2013

Today we are pleased to announce that we have been awarded a Certificate of Networthiness (CoN) by the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM). The CoN accreditation confirms that VBrick meets the strict U.S. Army and Department of Defense (DoD) standards for security, compatibility, and sustainability and authorizes VBrick’s solutions for use and purchase..

This authorization is a requirement for all enterprise software products in the Army Enterprise Infrastructure Network and applies to the entire U.S. Army, including the Army Reserve, National Guard and some DoD organizations. Supporting information on VBrick’s CoN can be found on the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) website – Case ID: 201312320.

The full version of the press release is available here.

Posted in Award, News, Press Release.

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The X, Y, Z, and T of UC*

By VBrick Systems – May 14, 2013

I gave a short talk at my alma mater a couple of years ago on the occasion of my 30 years of volunteer work for the school (ok, I’m an Old Guy, I admit it).  The key point was to talk about some of the changes that had taken place during that time.  Speaking in front of a group of alums, students, and staff in the atrium of the recently-built MacLean Engineering Sciences building, I remarked that thirty years prior, we all would have been gathered on the driveway at the edge of the little-used tennis courts.  The X, Y, and Z coordinates of our gathering place were the same but the T or “time” coordinate difference had brought about phenomenal change.  Instead of standing in the dirt by the side of the road, we were seated in one of the most modern teaching facilities in the world.

How does this relate to Unified Communications you ask?  Well, Unified Communications attempts to blur (or obliterate) the X, Y, and Z differences between users while maintaining T in the present.  As an example, a solution like Microsoft’s Lync allows me to use the presence icon to see whether someone is available – we don’t need to be near each other and I don’t need to walk down the hall to see if they are in their office.  We can chat via IM, Voice, or Video whether or not we’re in the same building, State, or country.  We can ask others to join us in the conversation no matter where they are.  That’s extremely powerful – but there’s a limitation in that the time coordinate is always in the present.  That’s where integration with video streaming comes in.

The integration of VBrick’s video streaming solutions with products like Microsoft’s Lync or SharePoint now allow the time factor to be extended or enhanced.  If a company wants to broadcast a company-wide CEO speech to everyone’s desktop in real time via the Lync or SharePoint UC client, they can do that.  The company can also record the session for re-broadcast at times more convenient for International employees – shifting the time coordinate.  And, the broadcast can be stored and accessed at a later time in case anyone missed the original broadcast or just wanted to review what was said – managing the time coordinate.  By adding video streaming to their Unified Communications arsenal, a company can now enable users to manage all of the X, Y, Z, and T coordinates of their communications.  And, in the process, the company is able to foster better communication, collaboration, and coordination among all of their employees, customers, and partners.

* Taking you back to high school geometry, the location of an object (or person) can be specified by four coordinates.  Loosely: X (north/south), Y (east/west), Z (elevation), and T (time).

Post by: Mike Chapman – Director, Product Management

Posted in UC.

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VBrick Appoints Shelly Heiden as CEO

By VBrick Systems – April 15, 2013

VBrick is excited to announce the appointment of Shelly Heiden as CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Prior to VBrick, Ms. Heiden served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services at SuccessFactors/SAP Cloud Solutions. She has also served as Senior Vice President at Plateau Systems.

Paul Sparta, Chairman of the Board of Directors said it best:

VBrick is extremely fortunate to bring in someone as capable and respected as Shelly Heiden as CEO. I have had the great privilege of working with Shelly for more than a decade, and I can’t think of anyone better suited to lead VBrick in this exciting new period of expansion. Her dedication to customer satisfaction, product excellence, and service execution are second to none.

Ms. Heiden will be in our Washington DC Metro Area offices where we have recently relocated our headquarters. The decision to move to the DC area came in support of our goals for business growth. We see rapid growth in our future and believe being in the DC area close to some of the world’s most prominent organizations is key.

Ms. Heiden is the most recent appointment to the growing team at VBrick. In recent months, we have added 25 new employees and expanded the senior management team of which Ms. Heiden is now a part.

When asked about VBrick, Ms. Heiden responded:

This is an enormously exciting time for VBrick, and indeed the entire streaming media market. We have very supportive investors, who like me, believe VBrick is ideally positioned to be the outright leader in media management and distribution technologies. We have a solid pipeline of innovations coming, and are gearing up for growth and expansion. It’s going to be hard work, but great fun as well.

Full Press Release

 

Posted in Award, News, Press Release.

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VBrick Sponsored Driver Conor Daly to Debut in 97th Indy 500

By VBrick Systems – April 2, 2013

Daly has been hired to drive A.J. Foyt’s No. 41 racecar in this year’s Indianapolis 500. The 97th Running of the Indianapolis 500 will be held Sunday, May 26th.

VBrick will be delivering a number of high-definition live streaming video events through our Online Streaming Service, VBOSS, where viewers can watch live events and simultaneously submit questions via Twitter.

Daly, who grew up in nearby Noblesville, Indiana, will be making his formal IndyCar debut in the 500, although he did test the ABC Supply Indy car in December.

Daly, who grew up in nearby Noblesville, Indiana, will be making his formal IndyCar debut in the 500 on May 26th although he did test the ABC Supply Indy car in December.

“I almost can’t describe what it means to have the opportunity to race in the Indianapolis 500,” Daly said. “I have been to the 500 every year of my existence except for last year when I raced in Monaco. It is truly my home race since I was born and raised in the Indianapolis area.  I am so thankful that A.J. and Larry [Foyt] have given me my first shot at the greatest race in the world.  I know this will sound cheesy but I’ve never been happier in my life; this race means so much to me.”

Daly will participate in the Rookie Orientation Program (ROP) on Thursday, April 11th along with three other rookies: Tristan Vautier, Carlos Munoz, and A.J. Allmendinger, who has won Indy Car races while competing in Champ Car but has never raced in the Indy 500.

Posted in Conor Daly, News, Uncategorized.

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It’s No Longer a Question; If You Run a Business Website, You Need Video

By VBrick Systems – March 15, 2013

Internet video has been exploding in scale for years, and is now used for a variety of goals, including executive communications, video-based training, sales and marketing, and live event broadcasts.

The only question? Where to host your videos. YouTube might seem an obvious choice; it’s the world’s largest platform, and it’s free. Everyone from 8 year-olds to grandmothers upload videos at the staggering rate – as of this writing – of 72 hours of video per minute. To put that in perspective, that’s almost 30 years of video uploaded every day, and YouTube charges nothing. Why would anyone pay for such a thing? A modern social network cliché applies soundly here: if you are not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product. While YouTube doesn’t claim ownership of videos you upload, its terms and conditions specify that they can use them freely at any time or place, something you might not be comfortable with.

So what can a premium video platform do for your business that YouTube cannot?

1) It’s An Image Thing: White labeling, where your video player is unidentifiable and uses your company logos, keeps focus on your video and brand. There are no distracting YouTube links, and the underlying structure is hidden. People are aware that YouTube is a free service, and its instantly recognizable player can give an unprofessional impression. You wouldn’t use a free service like Gmail for corporate email, or a Facebook page as your main company website; you shouldn’t use YouTube for the same reason.

2) They’re On Your site – Don’t Send Them Away: When a YouTube video is embedded on a page, not only might there be pre-roll advertisements you don’t control, but there is a logo in the bottom right which opens the corresponding page on YouTube. As well, the only links you can place in the video itself are links to… YouTube. Your prospective client can be whisked away to YouTube’s page where, distracted by a series of cat videos, he forgets about your site and product.  Even if this does not occur, when your video ends, your potential client is shown a list of “related videos”; it’s entirely possible a competitor’s “related” video is next, streaming in a player embedded on your own web page. Not cool, YouTube. With a premium video platform, you have complete control over what links are presented in your video, and can have a complete call to action with links pointed to locations on your site, as it should be.

3) Google Me, SEO: In order to optimize a video for search, you need to submit a video sitemap to Google. This requires the location of your video file (the actual file, not the page it’s on), something that YouTube deliberately keeps hidden to drive traffic to itself. SEO has become a very important tool for business, and having a reduced video search presence is crippling.  Premium video platforms do not rely on ad revenue, and often full video SEO is offered.

4) Limitations of YouTube: YouTube has a default maximum video length of 15 minutes, which is insufficient some videos, such as training films. While you can apply to have that extended, it will only be approved if your account is in good standing based on YouTube Community Guidelines, and there aren’t any blocks on your account. The problem with this is that you have no control over what YouTube deems acceptable, nor do you control what the public at large “flags” as inappropriate. YouTube isn’t perfect, and there have even been cases when videos have been removed and accounts suspended when content was erroneously thought to be copyrighted by others. In short, you have no guarantees.

Another major limitation of YouTube is that once you upload a video, you cannot modify it. This may seem trivial at first, but suppose at some point one of your videos is embedded on various pages around the internet, including blogs and review sites you do not control. One day the content in the video is made obsolete – say you lower prices and change a phone number – and you discover there is no way to update the embedded video without wiping it out. Potential clients are now calling a pet shop in Syracuse with outdated pricing information, and you lose a sale. Such problems are not an issue with a premium video platform, where video files can often be replaced without altering the embed codes.

5) Help! Managing video isn’t always easy. What if you upload a video and it displays poorly? What if you want to add multi-language captioning or additional audio tracks, discover your best quality to file size balance, or have problems creating a sitemap?  Premium video platforms include core support to help you with these issues, where with free services like YouTube, you’re on your own.

6) Premium and Future Products: Some higher-end premium video platforms include other useful tools, depending on your needs. Access restriction allows you to choose who is authorized to see a video, allowing you to publish videos to select groups of people.  Live streaming allows you to stream events live with a minimum level of effort. Finally, the ability to pull down a single stream and share it to everyone in the local network is an attractive option for larger customers, allowing them to distribute video to employees without clogging their internet connection.

Don’t get me wrong, YouTube does have its place – it has amazing reach, and viral videos on its network can promote your business, but it should not be relied upon as a primary video provider. It is however, tremendously useful for learning to Korean horsey-dance.

Post by: Ian Kelk, Product Manager – VBrick Systems

Posted in News, Online Video, VBOSS.

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ITU Agrees On New Video Coding Standard: H.265

By Steve Kossar – February 28, 2013

On January 25th this year, the ITU finalized the H.265 video compression standard.  This standard was developed with the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), who calls this standard HEVC. The goal of the new standard is to reduce video encoding bitrates by 50%, and studies of file based encoding validate this significant gain.

H.265 enables better quality video and reduced bitrates, reducing the networking and storage costs of video streaming.  H.265 also offers reasonable bitrates for encoding at higher resolutions such as 4K and 8K.

What is the real world impact of this new standard?  The adoption history of H.264 provides some perspective.  H.264 (aka Advanced Video Coding or AVC) was finalized in 2002 and formally approved in 2003.  However, viable H.264 solutions didn’t hit the market until 2005, and H.264 didn’t significantly displace older technologies until later in the decade.  The early H.264 products used the compression techniques of the older MPEG-4 part 2 and delivered the stream in H.264 syntax; they just didn’t have the computational power to take advantage of the advanced compression tools in H.264, and did not provide any benefit in improved compression or video quality over their predecessors.  As integrated circuit performance improved in the mid-2000’s, devices that made H.264 shine started to become available.  H.265 has 4-5 times the computational complexity of H.264, and should have a similar adoption path.  Initial H.265 product offerings will be comparable in compression efficiency and video quality to H.264 solutions.  Chip vendors are awaiting the updates to the standard, and will need improved integrated circuit process technologies before the technology to delivery on the promise of H.265 will be available.  Expect the technology to catch up to the capabilities of the standard in a few years, with H.265 adoption in real world applications starting in 2015 and 2016.

H.265 will lead to PC based encoders, sold in a pretty box as SD encoders from several vendors, becoming a technology of the past. Unlike encoding appliances, PC technology requires an expensive server platform that takes up a lot of space, and consumes a lot of power to deliver full framerate HD with H.264.  With H.265’s computational complexity, the days of using general purpose processors for live video encoding are over.  Don’t let your customers get tied to a dying technology; ensure sure they deploy appliance based encoding, and be certain that so-called “appliance” isn’t really a PC.  Hint: is it running a Windows Operating System?

From the invention of the network video appliance in the last century, to the latest quad channel 1080p encoding appliances available today, and on to the next generation of H.265 devices of tomorrow, you can continue to expect VBrick to lead the way in reliable high performance encoding.  When H.265 is ready to fulfill its promise, VBrick will be there to deliver.

Post by: Steve Kossar, Director, Product Management – VBrick Systems

Posted in Encoding, h.264, News, Online Video.

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VBrick Student Video Contest

By Greg Zweig – January 9, 2013

Yesterday we announced the winners of our second VBrick Student Video Contest.  As with the prior spring’s contest, we were excited to get submissions from across the country.  We had winning students as young as 10 years old reading the morning news like they were sitting next to Matt Lauer.  The Student Video Contest truly showcases the creative ways schools are using video to change the learning experience.  Let’s face it; pretty soon the chalkboard will seem as archaic as the inkwell.  As more students use video on a daily basis and a growing number of schools adopt classroom-based video technology initiatives like ‘flip the classroom’ and ‘1:1’ computing, our winners serve as great examples of how video is reshaping the classroom.

The winners, per category, are:

Winners

Best Morning Announcement, Grades K-8 – Santo Niño Elementary School – Laredo, TX

Best Morning Announcement, Grades 9-12 - Northwest High School – Justin, TX

Your School’s Video Story, Grades K-8 - Vista Murrieta High School – Murrieta, CA

Your School’s Video Story, Grades 9-12 - David Crockett Middle School – Richmond, TX

Teaching Tool, Grades K-8 – Austin Middle School – Irving, TX

Honorable Mentions

Morning Announcement, Grades K-8 – Colony Meadows Elementary School – Sugar Land, TX

Morning Announcement, Grades 9-12 – Manchester High School – Manchester, CT

Watch the winning videos, click here

Posted in Education.

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VBrick Unveils Major Release of 9000 Series Video Encoder/Decoder at Government Video Expo

By Greg Zweig – November 27, 2012

Wallingford, Conn. – November 27, 2012 – Enterprise IP Video leader VBrick Systems today unveiled Release 2.0 of its 9000 Series, a groundbreaking line of video encoding and decoding appliances that deliver an unmatched level of HD video quality and best-in-class channel density.  The 9000 will be featured November 28th and 29th at Government Video Expo in the VBrick Booth, #247, at the Washington, D.C. Convention Center.  The product’s new capabilities make it the ideal platform for mission-critical applications such as surveillance, telemedicine, broadcast backhaul and TV distribution deployments.

Release 2.0 of the 9000 Series enables HD encoding and decoding in the same network element.  With encode latency under 50 milliseconds, and end-to-end latency under 100 milliseconds, the 9000 Series offers broadcast quality video at costs far less than other broadcast-grade alternatives.

The growing demand for streaming video in corporate, education, government and healthcare institutions is driving the innovation behind the 9000 Series encoder/decoder.  Organizations require:

Greater Density – VBrick enables more efficient video distribution from enterprise head-ends where physical space is at a premium, and encoding/decoding per-square-inch becomes a deciding factor for a successful deployment.  Additionally, 9000 Series encoder/decoder-based installations are considerably “greener”, reducing per channel footprint, power consumption and HVAC usage/expense.  Available in both an appliance and blade form factor; appliances can be configured with up to 4 HD encode channels or a combination of encode and decode resources.  Rack mounted blade chassis can be deployed to support up to 44 channels of encode or 11 channels of decode.

Better Video Quality – The 9000 Series encoder/decoder is designed to support mission-critical surveillance, telemedicine or any application where sub-100 millisecond end-to-end latency and multi-channel1080p 60 fps encoding/decoding is critical.  Advanced encoding services such as H.264 High Profile and CABAC entropy coding provide the highest quality per bit of video.

 “Release 2.0 of the 9000 Series video encoder/decoder continues to raise the bar for performance and quality, better enabling our customers to deliver mission-critical applications such as surveillance, telemedicine and video backhaul.  Adding decoder capabilities into the 9000 Series increases deployment choices for our customers while extending our technology and value lead over competing video capture elements,” said Doug Howard, CEO of VBrick Systems.  “And since it is a VBrick product, you can be sure it is standards-based and delivers compelling integration with our end-to-end portfolio of IP Video solutions.”

As a core element of VBrick’s Video platform, the 9000 Series is tightly integrated with VBrick’s VEMS Mystro™ content management solution and its Distributed Media Engine networking solution; delivering streaming video to more kinds of devices over more kinds of IP networks.

 

Posted in Encoding, h.264, Press Release.

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VBrick Sponsors Live Event at US Grand Prix in Austin

By Greg Zweig – November 16, 2012

This weekend Formula 1 Racing Comes to the States! VBrick is excited to be connecting racing fans to the US Grand Prix in Austin.  Saturday night at 6 PM EST we are co-hosting a live webcast with Formula1Blog.com.  Tune in to watch Conor Daly and members of the Force India team discuss the weekend’s events.  You can help steer the conversation by submitting question on Facebook and Twitter.

The event will be streamed live from the K1 Speed indoor karting center in Austin, Texas  and can be the accessed via links from www.conordaly.net, www.formula1blog.com and www.vbrick.com. Tune in from 6PM to 9PM EST to see what’s happening at the USGP!

Posted in Conor Daly, Live Events, News, VBOSS.

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