Avid Announces New Multi-Platform Distribution Solution for Video

MPD helps meet current and anticipate future content delivery needs; helps media organisations attract and retain users

NAB (Booth #SU902), LAS VEGAS, 16 April 2012—Avid (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced the debut of a new Multi-platform Distribution (MPD) solution to address the demands of viewers who are driving requirements for multi-screen media consumption. With content increasingly viewed through a variety of TV, online, social, and mobile channels, producers need the ability to distribute their media across multiple platforms with greater ease, speed, and efficiency.

Avid’s MPD solution streamlines and enhances the process for journalists, producers and video editors who are creating and distributing content across multiple platforms. Leveraging Avid Interplay and iNEWS, this solution intelligently orchestrates the flow of assets and metadata through creation, transcode, and then delivery to web content management systems, online video platforms, and social media platforms. The solution uses existing Interplay and iNEWS functionality and web services APIs to cost efficiently adapt to a wide range of different customer environments and needs.  

“The market requires solutions that empower media companies to cast a wider net with their content reaching viewers in an anytime, anywhere, any device and on-demand environment while providing agility to content creators such as journalists to work seamlessly through the creation, management and publishing process. Such solutions are few and far between,” said Mukul Krishna, global director of Digital Media for Frost & Sullivan. “The Avid Multi-platform Distribution solution is an important extension to its asset management portfolio, giving users the ability to address an ever-widening array of consumer and content outlets.”

According to Nielsen’s 2011 “State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report,” 40 percent of U.S. mobile device owners watch TV across multiple screens today, and 30 million Americans watch TV on their phones. In order to attract, retain and engage viewers, this new Avid MPD solution gives journalists and video editors a simple unified user interface to create content once, then publish it directly to the right platform, in the right format, with the right metadata.  

“Substantial shifts in consumer preferences have put the pressure on our customers to deliver more content across more screens,” said Chris Gahagan, senior vice president of Products and Solutions at Avid. “Our Multi-platform Distribution solution helps them achieve a whole new level of performance by giving them the ability to integrate, manage and distribute their content with unparalleled speed and ease.”

Avid Multi-Platform Distribution

Publishing effectively to a variety of outlets, from websites and social media to content aggregators, requires the ability to circumvent a number of error-prone manual steps across several disparate systems. This solution allows media producers to:

Reduce complexity and the number of steps required to publish content

• Manages transcoders and uploads in the background so creators can focus on content

Use the whole newsroom, not just the web team

• Gives everyone desktop content creation capabilities (text and video)
• Provides single interface for creation of TV, web, mobile, and social media
• Lets journalists create social messaging as part of their story creation process

Write once and publish anywhere

• Enables journalists to write stories, add video, and publish to multiple outlets simultaneously from iNEWS and Interplay Production environments
• Publishing to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube complete with embedding and automated short URL creation
• Manages the complete process with integrated transcode/orchestration

Add two-way connections with WebCMS

• Lets television journalists create web content from within Interplay Central, repurpose existing stories in iNEWS for the web, do a single search and return results for content created on all platforms

Publish seamlessly to online video platforms

• Provides option of publishing to any online video platform from NewsCutter, Media Composer, or Interplay Central
• Integrates with multi-version mastering workflows based on AS-02, an emerging MXF-based standard that Avid supports and is demonstrating at NAB

Integrate with existing customer environments

• Uses web services to provide integration with customer’s exiting environment (WebCMS, transcoder, OVP, Avid products)
• Conforms to customer processes with adaptable workflow

Pricing & Availability

The Avid Multi-platform Distribution reference Solution will be demonstrated at NAB 2012. For more information contact Avid at MPD@avid.com.

Joanna Clark, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, joannac@rlyl.com, 44 (0) 207 403 8878

About Avid

Avid creates the digital audio and video technology used to make the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world – from the most prestigious and award-winning feature films, music recordings, television shows, live concert tours and news broadcasts, to music and movies made at home. Some of Avid’s most influential and pioneering solutions include Media Composer®, Pro Tools, Interplay®, ISIS®, VENUE, Sibelius®, System 5, and Avid® Studio. For more information about Avid solutions and services, visit www.avid.com, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube; connect with Avid on Facebook; or subscribe to Avid Industry Buzz.

© 2012 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without notice.  All prices are MSRP for the U.S. and Canada only and are subject to change without notice.  Contact your local Avid office or reseller for prices outside the U.S. and Canada.  Avid, the Avid logo, Fast Track, M-Audio, Media Composer, Pro Tools, Interplay, ISIS, Sibelius, and Avid Studio are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. The Interplay name is used with the permission of the Interplay Entertainment Corp. which bears no responsibility for Avid products.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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