Arris Group has tripled the capability of its VIPr transcoding platform, packing in the ability to process up to 24 QAMs of video per rack unit.
Arris also is launching AdManager, a system designed to let operators deliver targeted ads dynamically across multiple IP-capable devices, including tablets, smartphones, PCs, game consoles and connected TVs; and EventAssure Outage Management software for cable operators.
The company's VIPr 6000 platform transcodes channels from MPEG-2 to H.264 MPEG-4 and vice versa, and also can compress four HD MPEG-2 video channels into one QAM channel. Other enhancements in the VIPr 6000 include a redundant power supply and asynchronous serial interface (ASI) options.
"We continue to leverage improvements in silicon processing power to enhance the transcoding and ad splicing functionalities of the VIPr platform to better serve our customers' needs," said Bill Hogan, vice president of digital video solutions product line management at Arris. "The new VIPr platform provides significantly improved processing scalability, video quality performance and platform reliability."
In addition, Arris is introducing the VIPr Element Manager 1.1 release, which monitors and controls all VIPr 2000, 4000 and 6000 platforms. The software includes two new data-logging features for service providers using the VIPr's EBIF-based advanced advertising and audio level normalization (ALN) features.
Arris's AdManager builds on the vendor's existing SkyVision product suite managing linear ad insertion.
The AdManager suite comprises four components: the Core ad content workflow and routing of ad placement decisions between campaign management systems and the delivery infrastructure; 360, an SCTE 130-compliant campaign management application intended for VOD and dynamic linear placements; Delivery, which provides a playlist manager and an SCTE 130 ad-decision manager interface to various delivery infrastructure elements; and Enterprise, which provides global monitoring and advertising operations control at regional and national levels.
The AdManager components can be pre-integrated with Arris's ConvergeMedia Management, ConvergeMedia XMS and VIPr re-encoding products for linear ad insertion, VOD dynamic ad insertion and IP-addressable ad placement.
Finally, Arris launched EventAssure Outage Management, a multiservice outage management system that automatically identifies plant and service outages by correlating events. The software is integrated with Arris's ServAssure Advanced, using the same polling architecture to collect data from all DOCSIS devices.
EventAssure provides a Web-services architecture for integration with an operator's existing operational support system (OSS). The product offers an "executive dashboard" view as well as detailed outage tracking with historical alarm information.
