NewTek, Wowza Launch MediaDS Turnkey Streaming Appliance
By Jim Bask
NewTek has begun shipping MediaDS, a new 1RU appliance that integrates the company’s real-time production technology with live streaming software from Wowza.
The device is meant to hook up the loose end that exists after a show has been produced, for example, using one of NewTek’s TriCaster products. Traditionally, users have had to either build out their own media server capabilities or rely on a third-party CDN to distribute their video productions over IP. That’s a hassle, especially for customers who end up sending their content out to an external service like YouTube or Ustream just to make that content accessible to users on the corporate network. But by building Wowza’s streaming software into a simple hardware appliance with a basic UI, NewTek is giving users an easier way to distribute material, whether it’s on an internal LAN or over the wider Internet.
“This allows a content producer or content owner to take a live video signal of any type, whether it’s from a studio or a TriCaster or any other video switcher, and deliver it directly to the end user,” NewTek Director of Product Marketing Will Waters told StudioDaily. “It is a delivery or distribution system — a turnkey solution for anyone who wants to have total control all the way from content delivery to the consuming viewer. Typically, you’d have to piece that together from multiple vendors.”