NASA Channel Lands on Roku, Streaming Video From the ISS

Harmonic and its flagship customer NASA claim to have launched the first UHD HDR线性流信道. It includes content culled from an 8K camera on board the International Space Station.

Available for users of Roku devices (principally in the U.S.) the channel is delivered over-the-top through an app using a cloud-based end-to-end video streaming solution from Harmonic, Accedo, 和CenturyLink.

Since NASA first launched its channel over satellite in 2015 it has scanned archive film content into 4K and begun to capture more footage digitally in 4K and 6K. It even has an 8K camera orbiting the earth on the ISS, 布莱恩·沃尔斯透露, deputy program manager of the NASA Imagery Experts Program at the Harmonic press conference at IBC. The channel includes a live stream and real-time views of Earth from the ISS.

“Some of this higher resolution content has not been easy to get out,” Walls said.

The new service should change that since it will use Harmonic EyeQ to compress the video to UHD HDR 60fps at a maximum 15 Mbps for Roku. It is ABR-based so will also deliver at around 8 Mbps where conditions necessitate preserving quality. By comparison, the UHD (not HDR) satellite-delivered NASA channel require 20 to 25 Mbps.

Accedo is providing the user experience layer for the app 和CenturyLink the CDN. HDR等级为HDR 10, chosen because Harmonic felt it was the most easily deployed format at scale. An SDR version in UHD is also being produced.

蒂姆•沃伦, SVP and CTO for the video business at Harmonic, said the NASA streaming channel helps showcase the expanded color space offered by the HDR format “from an intergalactic perspective, 这是前所未有的壮举."

Harmonic's work with NASA is a reference case for its software-as-a-service (SaaS), 这是今年IBC信息传递的一个重点.

“Cloud has emerged as the most efficient and agile medium for video playout and delivery for both linear and catch-up TV,”蒂埃里·福蒂埃说, 公司视频战略副总裁. “With our VOS360 Video SaaS we are at the forefront of this change.”

Harmonic shared a few stats about the adoption of its SaaS platform: 35,000 OTT channels are deployed worldwide using it, 3,其中000个是云原生的, and its software and appliances served over 1 million concurrent users with World Cup streams this year.

乘着成功的东风, the company is introducing new SaaS applications for operators including dynamic ad insertion and disaster recovery.

Of the latter, Fautier said, “We can use cloud to turn on a vast amount of channels within minutes. We can commit to start-up time in an hour for extensive channel line-ups.”

他补充说, “We all know that Harmonic has been recognised for its video processing solutions, but with streaming such a clearly growing part of video delivery we want to be an enabler for content monetization and personalization.”