Verizon targets media industry

Verizon Business today announced its intention to provide IT services to the U.S. entertainment and broadcast industries by unveiling a version of its digital media platform that supports National Television System Committee signal used in North America, Central America and Japan.

Previous versions of the ICF Media Platform supported the PALS video standard of Western Europe.

The ICF Media Platform provides a comprehensive approach to editing, consolidating and distributing content to a wide variety of formats and devices, including PCs, IPTV set-tops, mobile phones and wireless devices.

Verizon Business has been "a trusted supplier of solutions to a large number of customers" in the video entertainment and broadcast industries and understands the data needs of this segment, said Todd Mottershead, director of product marketing in Verizon's new Digital Media Technologies group.

"We have one of the largest networks in the world, and we already manage their data and that is a key strength for us," he said. "We realized we didn't want to take a silo approach to this industry so we created an organization that wraps around all the different capabilities. With this platform, we have optimized traditional tools to meet the needs of media and entertainment companies."

Those needs include tying together far-flung production sites, providing mass storage, providing security for digital assets, offering the means to create content once and deliver it in the appropriate format to different devices and offering new means of using existing content to generate additional revenue.

At the NAB show in Las Vegas this week, Verizon Business is demonstrating its new capabilities, including its ability to "take a single piece of content, and rapidly convert it, then send it to a video-on-demand portal while also converting the original stand definition version back for use by the content owner or broadcaster for distribution over airwaves." Mottershead said. "We will also showcase our custom media solutions to show how our professional services team can take design work and adapt it. And we will be showcasing our ability to do fast-turnaround production so people can see how we take a live broadcast and do an edit on it quickly for multiple uses."

With the proliferation of video entertainment over multiple devices and the move to digital media, the entertainment world represents a growing segment that Verizon Business wants to serve in an expert role, he said.