Spinnaker

The Spinnaker™ family of advanced, live encoding solutions enables content providers to reach new audiences through new media networks. This professional streaming solution delivers best-in-class quality for live media delivery applications such as IPTV, web streaming, PEG, broadband TV, enterprise, education or government video.
 
Using state-of-the-art encoding enhancements and an advanced toolset, Spinnaker delivers the bandwidth performance and unique features necessary to provide a true broadcast experience over any IP network. It is a flexible and scalable solution, supporting resolutions from mobile to web to high-definition television. Unlike other encoders on the market, Spinnaker is optimized for delivery to both TV and a wide array of new media devices.

• Multiple Formats in one box! Spinnaker supports VC-1, Flash VP6 and H.264 formats in the same platform for the price the competition charges for one format only.
• Advanced compression settings! The Spinnaker interface exposes more of the advanced compression settings for each of the codecs, allowing unprecedented ability to optimize the platform for specific content, network, and latency requirements.
  
• Enhanced pre-processing! To provide best-in-class output, Spinnaker allows multiple pre-processing options, including Scaling, Cropping, De-interlacing, Inverse Telecine, and Adaptive Image Filtering.
  
• Multiple bit rates and Archiving! Spinnaker allows you to stream and archive multiple bit rates of VC-1 either in separate streams, or one intelligent stream. In addition, you can create an archive file asset from any or all of these streams simultaneously.

Spinnaker’s powerful and flexible encoding engine makes it an ideal solution for streaming live sporting events to the Internet. This was demonstrated when the opening pitch for Major League Baseball’s 2008 season was streamed live over the Internet to subscribers of MLB.com.

“With such a rapidly growing subscriber base of fully-engaged and dedicated viewers, we’re always pushing to deliver higher-quality live streaming content with new, interactive features,” said Justin Shaffer, senior vice president of new media, MLB.com. “Inlet’s Spinnaker allows us to produce multi-platform video at up to 1.2 megabits per second, up from just 700 kilobits per second in 2007, a dramatic enhancement of video quality and overall user experience.”

In addition to high-quality live streams of baseball games, Spinnaker will also play an integral role in the development of other interactive capabilities for MLBAM. Spinnaker can be used to create real-time highlights without the need for additional transcoding. Created directly from streamed data, highlights can be viewed with no buffering required. Inlet also created a customized mosaic software interface where users can simultaneously view videos of multiple games in play. Users can click on a game and immediately begin viewing in full screen without buffering. Additionally, Inlet helped create capabilities for inline ad insertions during live streams.

“We are proud of the role Spinnaker is playing in enriching the online user experience for baseball viewers worldwide,” said Inlet CEO Neal Page. “The sports industry represents a huge market for streaming content on the web and by working closely with MLBAM, the leader in online sports programming, we are helping companies who want to commercialize this new media opportunity.”

• Best-in-class SMPTE VC-1, Windows Media, Flash 8 VP6 and H.264 advanced encoding
  
• Encoding enhancements optimized for IPTV system deployments
  
• Broad subscriber reach for content providers, using existing infrastructure
  
• Advanced toolset for new media applications:
  
• Closed Captioning (CEA 608, CEA 708, SAMI)
  
• Open Captioning for H.264, VC-1 and Flash 8 VP6
  
• Simultaneous multi bit rate streams for VC-1
  
• Multiple language support
  
• Tier 1, 2 and 3 telco IPTV for VC-1
  
• Integrated system solution, compatible with middleware and set top box technology
  
• Calendar based scheduling, including recurring events and different presets per event
  
• Full service support including field software updates
  
• Full remote network management via web, SNMP, and syslog Spinnaker provides highly efficient device management through local, web and SNMP interfaces. Based upon Inlet’s patent-pending technology platform, Spinnaker’s core encoding software fully supports development enhancements, accommodating future requirements and new applications.

Spinnaker is a highly reliable, robust solution, with unique capabilities for new media broadcasts over IP. With Spinnaker, service providers can meet IPTV regulatory requirements and deliver content to either television or mobile and PC-based devices, thus reaching broader audiences and increasing revenue potential.