Sam Blackman, the founder of Elemental Technologies, a Portland, Ore.-based cloud video startup acquired by Amazon Web Services in 2015, died over the weekend “from apparent cardiac arrest,” The Oregonian reported. He was 41. 

Founded in 2006, Elemental Technologies tabulated a client list that included Comcast, Sky, HBO, DirecTV and CBS before it was acquired Amazon Web Services for $296 million. Elemental had almost 250 full-time employees at the time the deal was announced.

RELATED: Amazon Paid $296M for Elemental Technologies

Blackman stayed with the company as CEO following the deal. Elemental Technologies rebranded as AWS elemental in mid-April.

AWS Elemental has been asked for comment. "Right now we are focused on supporting Sam's family,” the company said in a statement to The Oregonian, which noted that the company last week had moved into a new headquarters building located in downtown Portland. The paper added that Blackman was an “enthusiastic runner and ultimate disc player” and “typically biked to work at Elemental from his home in Northwest Portland.”

Update: The Blackman family released this statement on Tuesday: 

“Sam died peacefully yesterday surrounded by his loved ones. In his private life, he cherished his family, and in his public life he cherished his community and the business he founded, Elemental Technologies. He was a passionate advocate for community service who rallied so many towards a greater good for the environment, hunger, education and inclusion. We are thankful to all those who have shared their thoughts and prayers for Sam. We ask that you respect our privacy during this time of grief.”

Blackman’s company has been on the cutting edge of OTT and video streaming. In April at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Blackman was on hand when AWS Elemental played a pivotal role in delivering a live 4K stream from the International Space Station that was a co-production of the vendor, NAB and NASA.  

Prior to co-founding Elemental, Blackman designed integrated circuit products for Pixelworks, and was previously an engineer at Silicon Graphics and Intel Corp. He earned an M.B.A. from University of Oregon, an M.S. in electrical engineering from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Brown University.

 Oregon Governor Kate Brown commented on Blackman’s passing, calling him a “beacon of Oregon’s tech community.”

"Sam brought energy, innovation, and jobs to an important and fast growing sector of Oregon's economy,” Brown added. “But, more importantly, he did so with a commitment to Oregon's values. As CEO of Elemental and later with Amazon, he led the company to grow financially while engaging civically on issues like education, hunger, and the environment. Sam's approach made Oregonians stronger while helping build the economy that they rely on. My heart is with his family and friends today, and I thank him for the important contributions he made to the entire state."

Elemental Technologies, the streaming video specialist acquired by Amazon Web Services last year, said shomi is using its cloud-powered platform to power its multiscreen SVOD service for over-the-top devices and set-top boxes.  

Elemental said shomi, the joint venture of Canada’s Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, helped the SVOD service launch and pass subscription targets during its first year of operation. Shomi launched across Canada in August 2015, but has not announced subscription figures for the C$8.99 per month offering. 

Elemental Cloud’s platform, in conjunction with the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon CloudFront, is helping to underpin shomi’s streaming service, which recently added the Xbox One to its growing list of supported devices. 

Elemental noted that shomi uses the vendor to manage, process, and package large batches of file-based video content for both OTT and VOD delivery. Adaptive bitrate assets are then packaged with corresponding digital rights management (DRM) schemes and stored on Amazon S3 for output to an Akamai content delivery network for a variety of connected devices. 

Amazon Web Services, the retailing giant’s cloud video unit, paid about $296 million to acquire video specialist Elemental Technologies, per a 10-Q document filed by Amazon on October 23 (hat tip: @DanRayburn).

That total is well below the $500 million value pegged to the deal by The Information when the agreement was announced on September 3. It also puts it a bit closer in line to the $125 million that Ericsson has put up for Envivio, another multiscreen video processing company.

Founded in 2006, Elemental has raised $41 million, and works with several large customers, including HBO, DirecTV and CBS Interactive, and Comcast, which is using the vendor’s processing and encoding software for its in-home live TV streaming app and cloud DVR for the MSO’s X1 platform. 

Elemental had almost 250 full-time employees when the deal was announced. Amazon is reportedly in talks with programmers about a live OTT video service.

Amazon’s got the tech platform to deliver a live over-the-top video service, and now it’s said to be working on content deals that could make it happen.

Amazon has had talks about licensing content for a live streaming service, Dan Rayburn, an analyst and exec at StreamingMedia.com and a founding member of the recently formed Streaming Video Alliance (SVA), reported in this blog post, citing multiple but unnamed content owners.

He said other suppliers in the “video ecosystem” also told him that Amazon has something cooking, though it's not clear how far down the road Amazon is at this point. 

Update: CBS and NBCUniversal are among those Amazon’s in talks with, according to Bloomberg, which called the discussions “preliminary.”

Rayburn points out Amazon knows its way around the content game, given the deals it’s been able to swing for its on-demand Prime Video service. “Amazon is doing more than just thinking about a live OTT service,” he concluded, but also allowed that Amazon could also be going through this exercise to look at the economics of the business.

But if Amazon is truly interested in obtaining live TV rights it seeks, it’s got lots of technology in place to underpin such an offering.

Amazon Web Services, for example, recently inked a deal to acquire multiscreen video processing specialist Elemental Technologies, which makes software for off-the-shelf hardware for both live and on-demand streaming. Amazon bought live streaming service Twitch in 2014.

It’s also possible that Amazon would use its lineup of Fire TV boxes and streaming sticks and Fire tablets to bring a live service into the home. Of course, nothing would prevent Amazon from building apps for other OTT platforms.

Amazon has also been weighing in at the FCC as the commission looks to reclassify some OTT providers as MVPDs, a move that could help them negotiate TV deals.  Amazon doesn’t think the FCC has to go to such lengths.

"In view of this dynamic, healthy, and rapidly changing technological and competitive environment, we questioned the need for government intervention in this market segment," the company told the FCC last month.

Video processing and cloud video services specialist Elemental Technologies said it has raised a $14.5 million “D” round led by Telstra, Australia’s largest telco, with participation from Sky, which tossed in a $4 million equity investment.

Existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Voyager Capital also participated in the round.

Elemental said it will use the funds to accelerate worldwide growth and expand its use of software-defined video products. The investments by Telstra and Sky also give Portland, Ore.-based Elemental solid business ties to two more large service providers and media companies.

Elemental said Telstra, which has begun to deploy 4G over new 700MHz spectrum, will  use the vendor’s full product line, with a “specific focus” on Elemental Delta, the vendor’s recently launched video delivery platform that supports a range of services and apps, including catch-up and start-over TV and network DVRs. 

“Our investment in Elemental will enable Telstra to create value for our global media customers,” said Mark Sherman, Telstra’s global enterprise and services managing director, ventures, said in a statement.

“For Sky, Elemental solutions support its current multiscreen OTT Sky Go properties, and as SDV architectures continue to mature, we believe there will be additional opportunities to collaborate in the future,” Sam Blackman, Elemental’s CEO, noted in this blog post about the funding round.

Sky has been splashing cash on a growing number of OTT and IP video-facing companies, including its recent investment in Pluto.TV and Roku, a leading providers of streaming media players. U.K.-based Sky operates three OTT services: Sky Go, NOW TV and Sky Store.

“In addition to an ongoing commercial relationship, Sky will have strategic access to the Elemental leadership team, which will help inform Sky’s long-term understanding and insight into future OTT developments,” Sky said.

Elemental, founded in 2006, already counts customers such as HBO, the BBC, ESPN, ABC News, CBS Interactive, Comcast and DirecTV, which has tapped Elemental’s file-based transcoding platform for the satellite TV giant’s new 4K offering.

Elemental  has raised $42.1 million so far, according to CrunchBase. 

In a push to help content partners rapidly turn live TV broadcasts into on-demand streams, thePlatform, the white label video publishing company owned by Comcast, has introduced mpx Replay, a component that enables broadcasters to bring “catch-up” TV to multiple screens.

mpx Replay, part of the company’s flagship mpx video publishing system, is designed to expedite the conversion of linear TV channels for catch-up or C3/C7 video, the company said. The new component also provides instant asset creation for publishing and distribution, automated metadata, pre-set availability windows, ad policy enforcement, and more monetization options. 

"mpx Replay addresses distinct, but similar, needs facing broadcasters – particularly in Europe and North America," Marty Roberts, co-CEO of thePlatform, said in a statement. "In Europe, broadcasters need a faster and more efficient way to address the growing demand for catch-up TV across any screen. In North America, broadcasters need an optimized C3 video process that keeps national ad loads intact when bringing their channels online. mpx Replay provides a streamlined, cloud-based solution for both."  

mpx Replay uses Elemental Technologies’ just-in-time packaging for adaptive bit rate distribution for a range of streaming platforms, including Apple HLS, Smooth Streaming, MPEG-DASH, and Adobe HDS. MP4 and MPEG-TS outputs are also supported, thePlatform said. 

As the IBC show hits the home stretch, here’s another roundup of news snippets from Amsterdam.

Check out our earlier IBC news roundups here, here, and here.

-A+E Networks and Cisco Systems said they have integrated and tested Nielsen ID3 tagging  to track viewing patterns for mobile screen services. Cisco noted that its D9036 broadcast encoder has been enhanced to deliver Nielsen  ID3 tagging, having previously released that capability on its Videoscape AnyRes Live software encoders. A+E Networks is introducing ID3 tagging to support viewer measurement on PCs, tablets and smartphones.

-Elemental Technologies said thePlatform, the Comcast-owned online video publishing unit, has upgraded its mpx Accelerate service to support video processing from Elemental. thePlatform’s mpx Accelerate product enables partners to store high-quality mezzanine video files for transcoding to a variety of formats.

-ONO, Spain’s largest cable operator in Spain, is expanding its relationship with TiVo by supporting TiVo’s cloud service APIs for multi-screen, authenticated TV Everywhere viewing options. The additions will also include cloud-focused search and discovery features and remote DVR management. ONO’s the first TiVo MSO partner to announce its use of the APIs to deliver a consistent TiVo experience across screen types. ONO said it has deployed its TiVo option to more than 400,000 active users, more than half of its user base.

-Cubiware is using the show to demo a prototype of the TiVo UI running on Evolution Digital thin-client set-tops outfitted with its CubiTV middleware platform and access to TiVo’s cloud service APIs. Cubiware said the mix is targeted to cable operators as well as satellite and IPTV service providers.

-Piksel, the recently relaunched online video publishing firm, has unveiled Piksel Mosaic, a proof-of-concept “hyper-personalized” video application that supports “context-based’ recommendations across set-tops and mobile devices. Piksel’s historic custoemrs include AT&T, BskyB, Mediaset and Sky Deutschland.

-Chipmaker Entropic Communications pumped out a bevy of announcements at IBC. Among them, Triax, an international distributor of digital TV and data gear, has added an Entropic-powered MoCA Ethernet-to-Coax Adapters to its product set. Hitron Technologies, meanwhile, has achieved MoCA 2.0 certification for the CGNM, a DOCSIS 3.0 wireless gateway that can bond up to 24 downstream channels and utilizes Entropic’ EN2710 baseband MAC/PHY and EN1410 RF transceiver/analog front-end.  Additionally, Portugal-based Novabase Digital TV Technologies has launched a new line of Digital Transport Adapters (DTAs) powered by Entropic’s EN700-series set-top box chipsets.

Elemental Technologies has become the latest video processing and packaging specialist to swim into deeper waters by launching a platform designed to vastly expand its multiscreen business.

At IBC in Amsterdam, the company has introduced Elemental Delta, a video delivery platform designed to help media companies and distributors add time-shifted services while also cutting down costs and reducing complexities.

Elemental said it’s been able to bring several “major” telcos, OTT, broadcast, satellite and mobile operators in the U.S., Europe (including ops in France, the U.K. and Sweden), and Middle East (including Qatar), and in New Zealand and Brazil, to Delta, a platform that’s designed to support several types of apps and services, including catch-up and start-over TV, and network DVRs. Elemental's customer base includes HBO, the BBC, ESPN, ABC News, CBS Interactive and Comcast, among others.

At IBC, Euan McLeod, director digital media technologies at Turner Broadcasting, was schedule to talk about how the programmer is using Delta to power its new CNNx TV Everywhere app, an Elemental official said.

Elemental said the platform, which uses a software-defined approach that ties into a broader SDN trend, combines just-in-time packaging, origin services, intelligent caching, dynamic ad insertion and replacement, and content protection functions in a single platform that also supports the major adaptive streaming protocols (HDS, HLS, Smooth Streaming and MPEG-DASH), compression formats, and multiple digital rights management systems.

Elemental isn’t alone in attacking the market with a broader, platform-centered approach to multiscreen video. For example, Envivio, another company known for video processing and packaging, launched a more well-rounded platform called Nuage earlier this month.

The announcements are arriving at a fast and furious rate as the IBC show (September 11-16) gets underway in Amsterdam. Here’s a roundup of news snippets from the video and tech confab:

-You.i and Pace will show a new user interface that’s running on 4K-capable Media Servers and “IP Pucks” that are pre-integrated with Pace Elements middleware for both Reference Design Kit (RDK) and non-RDK deployments. You.i, by the way, is underpinning the interface for “shomi,” the new OTT subscription video offering from Canadian operators Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications.

-Off the floor, RDK LLC, the joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Liberty Global, plans to host a private, closed door meeting with suppliers and operators on Sept. 16, according to people familiar with it. For an expanded look at the RDK’s global ambitions and a sampling of RDK demos that will be shown at IBC, please see this story (subscription required) from the Sept. 8 issue of Multichannel News.

-IBM’s Aspera division -- in tandem with broadcast production systems vendor EVS and multiscreen video specialist Elemental Technologies – has introduced a large-scale system for the delivery of live high-res video streaming from the proverbial cloud. The system is particularly tailored for the delivery of live sporting events, they said.

-Arris has introduced a suite of advanced compression products, including the HEVC-capable DSR-7400 Transcoder Integrated Receiver/Decoder; the SE-7400 HEVC UHD/4K Encoder (a single-channel HEVC/UHD encoder for live linear encoding up to 4Kp60; and the ME-7000 Converged Compression Platform (for multiscreen delivery of IPTV, cable and satellite applications).  

-Alcatel-Lucent has introduced virtualization features to its Velocix Content Delivery Network (CDN) platform that decouples the software that controls and routes traffic on a network from the physical infrastructure that provides compute and storage resources. That combo reduces the time required to install or expand the CDN, the company said, noting that the product set joins the company’s network functions virtualization (NFV) portfolio announced earlier this year.

-Ooyala, the online video publisher being acquired by Australian telco Telstra, said it has won a deal to support Sky Sports’ free VOD content slate offered on its website, including analytics that tell Sky now users are engaging with that content and discovery features that help visitors find content. Ooyala also announced that it is powering premium content for Presto on Google Chromecast  devices. Presto is a premium movie streaming service based in Australia.

Please check back for additional items and updates throughout the day.

Video processing specialist Elemental Technologies has its first CFO – John Ewert.

Ewert, the former VP of finance at Palo Alto Networks, will head up Elemental’s global financial operations.

“John’s diverse background in senior financial management roles, combined with his dedication and integrity, will be fundamental to Elemental’s continued development,” said Sam Blackman, CEO and co-founder of Elemental, in a statement “He has a proven track record of driving growth at successful companies, and I am looking forward to working with John to drive Elemental to the next level.”

Ewert is also late of Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Elemental, a company that is looking to play a big role in HEVC video coding and the push to 4K video, has a customer roster that includes HBO, the BBC, ESPN, ABC News, CBS Interactive and Comcast, among others.