Nevada City, California, September 12, 2014 – Telestream® (IBC stand 7.C12), the leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, has announced the completion of a strategic project with UK-based free to air commercial broadcaster, ITV. Designated content delivery modernisation (CDM), the project positions Telestream’s Vantage transcoding platform at the heart of ITV’s file-based workflow. Adopting Vantage in this way enables ITV to achieve time and cost efficiencies across the business and exploit its content across multiple delivery platforms.

As one of the leading partners in the Digital Production Partnership (DPP), ITV supports the decision by all the UK broadcasters to move to exclusively file-based program exchange by 1 October 2014.

ITV first created significant production improvements with its two major serial dramas – Coronation Street and Emmerdale. In 2012, production for the two soaps moved to HD, and as part of that process transitioned from tape to file-based production and post. ITV needed a means of taking the production file format (AVC-Intra) and converting it to the playout format (MPEG-2). The programs also need to be available to viewers on a range of online and mobile platforms for catch-up viewing. Using two Vantage processor farms has helped ITV achieve its goal of processing all its catch-up content in house.

Initially, ITV established a small Vantage-based transcode farm as a trial project to do all the processing for ITV’s two daily dramas. From that starting point, ITV has rapidly moved to a situation where it can process all catch-up content in house, through two Vantage processor farms, supplied through Telestream’s UK distributor, Boxer Systems.

David Hornsby, Content Delivery Applications Manager at ITV, said: “As part of the evolving digital landscape, viewers want to access quality content using a variety of platforms and devices. This presents great opportunities for ITV, and we are delighted to have achieved this milestone in our technology roadmap, which allows us to exploit our content across multiple delivery platforms and improve the viewing experience for our audiences.”

“Today, every piece of ITV content on any catch-up platform is encoded in house using Vantage which has enabled our business to achieve significant efficiencies in the quality, speed and costs associated with delivering content,” commented Hornsby.

“At Telestream, we believe that this project will prove to be an important milestone in the establishment of file-based workflows and especially DPP within the UK broadcast industry,” said Paul Turner, VP of enterprise product managementat Telestream. “We see one of the country’s largest broadcasters adopting new and radically different workflows, exploiting new distribution channels and potentially creating significant new revenue streams. We’re delighted that Telestream and Vantage are at the heart of that development.”

Telestream is presenting Vantage workflow solutions at the International Broadcasters Convention (IBC) Sep 12-16 in Stand 7.C12.   Telestream and ITV are co-presenting an IBC Workflow Solution session ITV Automates Multi-Platform Workflows with Telestreamon Friday 12 September 14:30-15:30 in Hall 9 room A40.

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About ITV PLC
ITV is the largest commercial television network in the UK. It is the home of popular television from the biggest entertainment events, to original drama, major sport, landmark factual series and independent news. It operates a family of channels including ITV, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 and CITV which are broadcast free-to-air. ITV is also focused on delivering its programming across multiple platforms including itv.com, video on demand and other platforms, mobile devices and games consoles. ITV Studios produces and sells programmes and formats in the UK and worldwide, and comprises of ITV’s UK and international production operations, international distribution, home entertainment, publishing, merchandising and licensing.

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