Online HDTV provider ZiXi has announced a new cloud-based video broadcasting platform designed to deliver video to global audiences on any device.
The new ZiXi Cloud Service (ZCS) will see use on tablets, smartphones, PCs, and laptops and has been launched, says the company, to meet unprecedented demand for live Internet event streaming.
The big opportunity, and indeed USP for ZCS, is seen as in terms of quality of experience.
ZiXi argues that even though demand for video everywhere has never been greater, the experience delivered to date by webcasting solutions in the round often falls short of user expectations.
It says that video disruptions are all too commonplace, and most providers can't reliably transmit video in true HD quality, something that it regards as a daunting challenge given the intrinsic nature of video which it says is particularly susceptible to network errors and impairments. Furthermore, it suggests that scaling video in HD quality to hundreds of thousands of viewers with devices that support different players and formats are extremely difficult.
However, ZiXi assures that its new cloud-based service solves these issues. Using Amazon's web-based Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a front-end service, ZCS supports any standard encoder in the market, enables live events in full HD quality and delivers the content in multiple video formats, such as HLS and RTMP, to CDNs for wide-scale distribution. This, insists the company, addresses the first-mile problem and delivers video to hundreds of thousands of viewers on different mobile devices at the same time.
"Video quality is only as good as its weakest link; good long haul transmission quality cannot make up for poor first mile quality," said Israel Drori, CEO of ZiXi. "The ZiXi Cloud Service is an ideal solution for scaling live webcasts in pristine quality to a large number of viewers through CDNs and to mobile devices. With ZCS, millions of users get outstanding broadcast quality and reliability, every time, whether they're viewing on a PC, smartphone, or tablet device."