"By working closely with Envivio, we are further extending VC-1's reach by offering very high quality video encoding for IPTV, Internet TV and mobile TV operators," said Tim Harader, Sr. Business Development Manager for Core Media Processing Technologies at Microsoft, as Envivio today announced that it has licensed the new Microsoft VC-1 Encoder to support Windows Media Video (VC-1) within the Envivio Convergence Generation headend solution.


The solution features the Envivio 4Caster C4 multichannel IP encoder for IPTV and Internet TV applications.

“The image quality offered through our new Microsoft VC-1 Encoder technology," Harader added, "provides an unparalleled experience for consumers watching video on TVs, PCs and mobile phones.”

“The important work that we are doing with Microsoft is strategic for our product line and our customers,” noted Julien Signès, President and CEO of Envivio Inc., “VC-1 is one of the most widely used encoding formats in the Internet streaming industry.”

By enabling both IPTV and Internet TV services from the same VC-1 encoder, a service provider offering both services and using the 4Caster C4 will only need to invest in one headend rather than two, and only one redundancy system and one management system, resulting in significant cost savings,  Signès explained.

He continued:

"Using one encoding platform to provide these two services also reduces the risk to a service provider with respect to interoperability and compatibility of devices tied to these services. For those service providers intending to offer only one of the services enabled by the 4Caster C4, the encoder affords them the flexibility to add the other service at a later date by simply expanding their existing headend or reconfiguring their existing C4s to have them offer the other service. "

An official Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) standard, VC-1 video is ubiquitous on the Internet and provides superior playback across a wide array of scenarios regardless of bit rate or resolution. These scenarios range from the PC (where VC-1 playback at 1080p is possible) to set-top boxes, gaming systems, wireless handsets and next-generation high-definition optical discs (HD DVD and Blu-ray).