The Briefing Room

Overview
Data Tech Ventures is a global leader in award-winning broadband video streaming, with a pay-per-view network and more than 100,000 video-on-demand titles. As Data Tech’s volume of content grew, and the number of formats and resolutions they needed to support expanded, the company realized that their manual, homegrown, spreadsheet-driven, encoding solution could no longer meet their needs. They set out to find a solution that could help automate that entire encoding process.

In Data Tech’s industry, quality counts, so the company needed an encoding solution that could not only scale to meet the huge volume of content coming in every day, but also ensure that each finished video would meet the quality expectations of the company’s discerning viewers.

Armada to the Rescue
Inlet created Armada to automate the entire file preparation process, eliminating many of the bottlenecks and tedious manual steps that bog down more traditional approaches like the one previously used by Data Tech. Armada also offers a multi-format, multi- CPU, high-output architecture that can manage an entire workflow, or plug into existing asset management tools.

After trying a few other solutions, the company deployed Inlet’s Armada automated workflow management system in January of 2009. The company currently uses 18 full Armada systems to process an average of 300 full length features (each running 1.5 to 2 hours) each week, but the volume has been as high as 600 features in one week. Armada is also used to encode video compilations that are typically four to six hours in length.

By significantly improving capacity and throughput, Armada has helped Data Tech Ventures prepare its high volume of content in less time with fewer machines and less manual intervention than ever before. Data Tech estimates that as of October 2009, they have used Armada for nearly 16,000 encode work orders and 65,000 encode jobs, and have done as many as 3,000 individual encodes per week.

Since Data Tech’s content comes from a variety of sources in a wide array of formats, Armada’s ability to ingest all leading formats and output to Windows Media, H.264, MPEG4, Flash and more was another plus for the company. For example, some content requires 12 different output bitrates in one format, plus 7 different bitrates in another format, etc., and Data Tech had to encode each hour of that video to over 18 different bitrates to 3-4 different formats. That process could be very time-consuming and cumbersome, sometimes requiring multiple solutions for the many different formats. Armada’s automated workflow and support for multiple formats streamlined this process and eliminated the need for multiple solutions.

Armada also centralizes the control of templates, watch folders and customer IDs, providing oversight for managing submitted content before, during and after the encode. These features have provided Data Tech with a more robust queuing system, allowing them to rearrange the order of content “on the fly.� Armada has also given them more flexibility to add sub workflows and make adjustments with just a few clicks versus rewriting the code.

“The level of automation Armada provides makes it so much easier to manage our huge library of content, and gives us even more flexibility in what we encode and how we deliver it,� said Dave Puryear, encoding/codec specialist and Production Department R&D Manager, Data Tech Ventures.

Inlet’s industry expertise and level of attention has also impressed Data Tech Ventures. “Their reputation for service was a major selling point and they have surpassed our expectations,� explained Jay Strowd, vice president of Media Technologies, Data Tech Ventures. “The combination of excellent technology and unprecedented support really makes Inlet stand out in our minds. We look forward to working with them even more as they expand the functionality of Armada to include more post-processing modules.�

The Bottom Line
“Inlet has changed the way we operate by helping us consolidate all of our products into one solution. We now run everything through Armada instead of piecing together lots of little products, each with its own dedicated machine,� added Strowd.