Comcast Wholesale and thePlatform, the online video publishing firm Comcast acquired in 2006, used this week’s NAB show to unveil theVideoPlatform, billing it as a unified system for the distribution of broadcast and digital video to multiple screens that will put in on stronger competitve footing with the likes of MLB Advanced Media and Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS).

Comcast Platform Services said theVideoPlatform is underpinned by its media infrastructure and mpx, which has long been thePlatform’s flagship online video publishing product. The new, unified product also comes about six months after former co-CEO Marty Roberts left thePlatform and the unit was aligned under Matt McConnell, SVP and GM of Colorado-based  Comcast Wholesale.

Targeted at broadcasters, other MSOs, programmers and digital media publishers, the integrated product mix will handle elements such as video management, publication, distribution and monetization, Comcast said.

Free Speech TV (FSTV), an independent non-profit news network with 40 million subscribers,  recently tapped  theVideoPlatform for its linear and online content distribution.

The debut of theVideoPlatform represents a “broadening” of Comcast’s video distribution capabilities and how the company views the market, Barry Tishgart, vice president of Comcast Wholesale, said.

He said a more unified, preintgrated approach with respect to transcoding, content delivery networks and live linear streaming is also desired by programmers, media companies and OTT players.

“A lot of customers in this space are suffering from a bit of vendor fatigue,” he said. “There are so many different components to an online video solution that customers don’t necessarily want to do the shopping amongst different vendors and integrating the solution themselves.”

With theVideoPlatform, Comcast also aims to bring to bear a strong competitor to rival platforms/services such as MLBAM and VDMS. That market is also flush with competitors that provide elements of multiscreen video distribution such as Akamai, Amazon Web Services, IBM (which recently bought Clearleap and Ustream), NeuLion, and Ericsson, which this week introduced MediaFirst Video Processing, a service that is partially built on technology that Ericsson obtained via its aquisition of Envivio.

Though theVideoPlatform is targeted to traditional media players as well as pure OTT opportunities, “the biggest demand we see today is solving for big picture business opportunities for programmers, and we're actively pursuing that space,” Tishgart said.

Comcast Wholesale, a Denver-area unit of Comcast that runs a CDN and IP services, said it has added an added international IP voice termination that it will pitch to multichannel video programming distributors, ILECs, CLECs and over-the-top voice carriers.

The service, it said, will enable its partners to tap into Comcast’s network and to lower the costs of international calls and expand their footprint globally.  Its IP voice termination service sues the same networks and resources that Comcast Cable uses for its own voice traffic.

Comcast said it began to offer wholesale voice termination in 2012, and now is responsible for 2.5 billion minutes of voice traffic per month for customers, including several large North American MVPDs.  

“We are excited to offer our wholesale voice customers high-quality international IP voice termination. The new service can help them expand their footprint overseas, increase efficiencies and navigate new technologies,” Barry Tishgart, vice president at Comcast Wholesale, said in a statement.

Comcast Wholesale announced the new offering in tandem with the Pacific Telecommunications Council 2016 Conference, set for January 17-20, in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

Marty Roberts, the co-CEO and long-time exec of Comcast-owned online video thePlatform, has left the company, it was confirmed.

GeekWire first reported of Roberts’s departure on Monday.

Roberts and Jamie Miller were named co-CEOs of thePlatform in May 2014, a move that came after Ian Blaine, thePlatform’s co-founder and former CEO, stepped down and took on a temporary role of strategic advisor.

Miller will continue to be responsible for thePlatform, which is now aligned under Matt McConnell, SVP and GM of Comcast Wholesale, the Colorado-based unit that operates a content delivery network, supports multiscreen video services, and recently introduced a live streaming service.

Seattle-based thePlatform was founded in 2000. Comcast acquired the company in 2006 for what’s believed to be about $100 million.

The leadership changes enter play as thePlatform becomes more tightly aligned with Comcast Wholesale.

“In mid-2015, thePlatform aligned with Comcast Wholesale to build market-leading products to serve the worldwide video industry,” thePlatform said, in a statement. “After early successes with customers it became clear that an even tighter alignment across the two organizations would allow for a more rapid expansion and optimization of the combined portfolios to meet the ever-expanding needs of customers.

“The leadership team,” the company added, “recognized the need to have a central point of leadership at thePlatform, and a common vision, to support a tighter alignment of the organization and build forward-thinking technology products. As such, thePlatform will continue to be aligned under Matt McConnell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Comcast Wholesale.  Jamie Miller will continue to report to Matt and be responsible for thePlatform.  Marty Roberts, who previously served as co-CEO of thePlatform, will be leaving the company.”

Roberts joined thePlatform in 2006 and, before being named co-CEO, served as the company’s SVP of worldwide sales and marketing. During his tenure, thePlatform saw its customer base grow to the bulk of the top 50 most-watched cable networks, including USA Network, History, Channel, A+E and E!. thePlatform also works with several major MVPDs, such as Liberty Global, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems Corp., Cox Communications, Rogers Communication, Telstra and corporate cousins Comcast and NBCUniversal, and has recently inked strategic deals with partners such as Adobe, Alcatel-Lucent, and Verizon Digital Media Services. Examples of OTT/SVOD partners include shomi, Stan, Viaplay, and Starz Play Arabia.

In June, thePlatform launched a cloud-based Unified Ingest Service aimed at simplifying the the management of how video and its associated metadata is ingested and managed for a wide range of device types, including older set-tops that use QAM/MPEG-2 transport as well as IP-capable tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and streaming players. 

Comcast AdDelivery, a service of Comcast Wholesale, has launched an integrated promotional content management system for cross-channel spots used by cable television networks and other content owners. 

The solution provides a single platform for cable operators and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to manage promotional content and national, regional or local media placements purchased by the content owner, the company said.

Comcast AdDelivery said the solution also features a quality control solution that supports a wide range of video and audio formats, meaning that promotional content can be transcoded into the exact required receiver format, saving extra steps in the content management workflow.

The new promo workflow, which can be used to upload, store and track cross-channel spots and other promotional content, also integrates with Comcast AdDelivery’s ad management solutions, enabling a the unified delivery of “tune-in” TV spots and other promotional content into the traffic management systems used by TV networks, individual broadcast TV stations and cable operators.

“Comcast Wholesale is committed to bringing simplified solutions to the distribution ecosystem that revolutionize and drive efficiency into an extremely complex marketplace,” said Todd Porch, VP of Comcast Wholesale, in a statement. “With cross-channel promotion becoming increasingly important for driving viewership, these enhancements serve as yet another example of how our innovation is keeping our customers at the forefront of the market.”

Comcast AdDelivery said it currently provides ad distribution services for over 10,000 national, regional and local advertisers, and is capable of delivering tens of thousands of HD and SD ads per day within less than two hours via Comcast’s 100G fiber backbone.

The Comcast Wholesale unit of Comcast Cable said it has developed a new way to insert ads into both linear and video-on-demand programming by integrating the workflows of its Comcast AdDelivery and VOD aggregation and delivering platforms.

The new set-up allows advertisers, their agencies, and creative shops to manage cross-platform advertising campaigns running in prior episodes of TV series that may be viewed via VOD as well using a single cloud-based web portal, the company said.

“Providing a full service solution for digital ad insertion across both linear and on demand is a valuable improvement for television advertising,” said Matt McConnell, SVP and GM of Comcast Wholesale. “This brings the advertising community closer to its vision for an ‘Advertising Everywhere’ ad management solution for reaching TV audiences across all TV and Internet-based platforms and markets.”

The MSO said Comcast AdDelivery currently supports more than 10,000 advertisers, agencies and post houses and distributes spot TV advertising directly into the traffic management systems used by most national and local, cable and broadcast outlets in North America as well as media reached by global ad delivery platforms.  Comcast said its Wholesale unit’s VOD platform currently distributed more than 20,000 hours of programming for more than 275 content providers.

The National Cable Television Cooperative and Comcast Wholesale have struck a multiyear renewal for the HITS National Authorization Service (NAS), including new provisions that will help co-op members use “universal” digital transport adapters.

Aimed at reducing costs for live and ondemand video as well as IP services, NAS is a centrally-managed conditional access and security platform for NCTC members that was originally launched in 1996. The architecture gives those operators an alternative way to purchase and operate headend management systems required for et-top boxes and interactive program guides, while also meeting Emergency Alert System requirements.

The new deal also extends central management of uDTAs, as well as a broad range of MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 set-tops and retail devices, such as TiVo DVRs, that use CableCard security modules.

Support for uDTAs, which can work on digital cable systems based on the Arris/Motorola or Cisco Systems platforms, could be a key addition for smaller operators that intend to use the one-way channel zappers to facilitate all-digital transitions.