Artesyn Embedded Technologies today announced two new media 
processing acceleration appliances, the SharpStreamer™ 1U Platform and the SharpStreamer 2U Platform, that enable communications service providers to significantly increase the density of their multiscreen video services by using hardware-accelerated, software-based transcoding in a standard rack server architecture. Carriers can also use these new platforms to move their video transcoding to the cloud and extend video transcoding into applications such as content delivery networks (CDNs), over-the-top (OTT) service provider provisioning, online video platforms (OVPs), network personal video recorder (PVR) functions, and media asset management (MAM) infrastructure to benefit from greater digital workflow automation.
With the capacity to transcode up to 176 simultaneous video streams, the SharpStreamer 1U Platform offers the highest density per rack unit (RU) of any standards-based platform. The SharpStreamer 2U Platform, also capable of transcoding up to 176 media streams, offers a high density carrier grade solution for applications that need NEBS compliance. These new platforms will enable applications such as video transcoding and encoding equipment, video OTT infrastructure, network PVR, video/content optimization, and network video conferencing to scale to meet consumers’ increasing demands for streaming video while reducing CapEx, power and space requirements.
“Businesses are increasingly looking to the cloud to manage peaks in content processing, and also to avoid the considerable CapEx and OpEx costs associated with on-site provisioning that don’t scale to meet higher bandwidth demands,” said Linsey Miller, marketing director for server acceleration products, Artesyn Embedded Technologies. “Transcoding acceleration enables our customers to extend the life of their current server systems and also ensure the same infrastructure can support newer video compression formats such as HEVC, which is positioned as a more efficient format for smart phone applications, HD, 4K and 8K. Our new SharpStreamer platforms help alleviate both of those pain points with a hybrid solution that combines the benefits of software encoding with the performance and quality similar to hardware encoders.”
Both new SharpStreamer Platforms are based on Artesyn’s SharpStreamer PCI Express add-in acceleration card integrated into an industry-standard 19 inch rack mount server system with powerful live and video-on-demand video transcoding software enabled by the Intel® Media SDK and Artesyn independent software vendors (ISVs). The systems are complemented by Artesyn’s system integration services, which allow for integration of Artesyn and third-party cards, software and branding in order to streamline customer deployment.
