StreamZ™ Transcode Manager | File to File Transcoding & Media Processing 

The StreamZ Transcode Manager is a media processing solution that seamlessly blends transcoding and workflow capabilities, supporting a comprehensive range of formats with superior quality for applications from post production and archive to multiscreen distribution.

As a scalable and modular microservices-based software platform that enables customizable foundational architectures, StreamZ Transcode Manager delivers a dynamic system management environment, allowing ready access to a catalog of features, functionalities and licenses that are required at run-time. This decision-based media processing workflow facilitates intelligent automation and exceptional scalability, and is easily managed from a single, intuitive and consistent interface.

Benefits

• Reduce your watch folders: Automated decision-making detects source properties and metadata to adapt your workflow accordingly, minimizing the number of watch folders you need

• Repackage without recompressing: With microservices-based engines, you can repackage (rewrap or transmux) media between many container formats without recompressing the video or audio. Repackaging without re-encoding preserves quality and maximizes efficiency

• Adapt continuously: Content and metadata are continuously analyzed on a frame-by-frame or sample-by-sample basis, enabling processing to automatically adjust to changing characteristics even within a single source file (such as mixed audio types, mixed AFD aspect ratio management codes and more

Features

• Software-only product that can be deployed on standard server/blade systems (optional server host systems available) or in cloud/virtualized environments

• Network distributed file-based transcoding and transmuxing, supporting various file formats on input, including QuickTime ProRes, MXF, GXF, TS, and more

• Support for various SD, HD and 4K/UHD output file formats including HEVC, H.264, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), MPEG DASH, MXF, GXF, MPEG-2 Transport Streams, Dolby Digital Plus, WAVE, PCM, AAC, and more

• Support for various media manipulation functionalities (e.g., scaling, deinterlacing, video mixing/overlays, graphic overlays, metadata manipulation, subtitle overlays)

• Can be installed as a standalone, workstation software application

Applications

Manage your audio levels: Even beyond regulatory requirements in various countries, ensuring consistent perceived audio levels provides a more enjoyable experience for your audience, increasing their engagement. Loudness correction options from companies such as Dolby are available for Zenium-based engines, offering compliance with ATSC A/85 (U.S. CALM act), EBU R128, and ITU-R BS.1770-2 specifications, and more.

Convert your captions: Our microservices-based engines further expand our robust Closed Caption capabilities (which already includes advanced features like creating CEA-708 captions from 608-only sources) with expanded SMPTE Timed Text support per SMPTE RP2052 and CEA8 Closed Caption parsing, passthrough and retiming for frame rate conversion (in addition to our existing similar CEA-608 capabilities).

Take control of your workflows: The Blueprint Workflow Designer lets you visually design exactly the workflows you need, from basic video and audio processing to complex, multi-stage workflows. You can combine core functions and workflow steps in your preferred order – unencumbered by typical pre-defined, linear structures – while the ability to ‘probe’ data and preview results at any point of the workflow eases testing and refinement.

Manage rich metadata: All of the data available in the input source (such as timecode, captions and metadata) is accessible and maintained throughout your workflow. Available data sources are visible during workflow design and testing, and any metadata or source properties – not just a limited selection of common types – can be used to configure tasks, trigger automated decision-making or be transformed for output.

Upgrade more easily: The flexible, component-based architecture and dynamic, repository-based deployment model make it easy to upgrade without interrupting operations and to update individual features, functions and engines while leaving others unmodified (e.g., upgrading to a new HEVC or H.264 encoder version while keeping MPEG-2 as-is; or taking advantage of enhancements on select projects while leaving others untouched). This significantly streamlines upgrades and gives you far more control – ideal for scenarios such as when your clients ‘certify’ your outputs based on specific versions.

Deploy flexibly: The deployment dynamics also include floating licenses, letting you purchase and provision microservices based engine and component (features such as codecs) licenses based on how many you need to run concurrently, without locking them to specific host systems. Licenses – even on a feature-by-feature basis – can be redeployed onto different systems across your enterprise automatically based on project demands, and can be managed across multiple distributed locations from a single centralized server. Adding new features or more engines is as simple as updating your central license package.

Group processes into stages: One of the powerful efficiencies is that various steps in a workflow graph may be processed simultaneously in parallel. For scenarios in which you want groups of these processes to be serialized (e.g., if you want an entire output file to have been generated before delivering it to external recipients and notifying them by email) you can combine multiple graphs into multi-stage workflows, in which each graph stage is completed in its entirety before moving on to the next.

Mix-and-match best-of-breed technologies: The flexible architecture and rapidly expanding ecosystem of third-party technology partners let you ‘mix and match’ components from ourselves and our partners to create the optimal workflows for your needs. From alternative codec implementations to partner offerings like automated inline Quality Control, the choices are in your hands.