thePlatform Marks 10-Year Anniversary with Launch of mpx Beta: Next-Generation Video and Media Publishing System

SEATTLE, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- For the past decade, thePlatform has been at the forefront of the online video industry, managing high profile, cross-platform initiatives for some the world's most recognized media companies and brands. Today, concurrent with the company's 10th anniversary, thePlatform launched mpx Beta, a radically re-engineered video management system designed to deliver an unmatched combination of efficiency and scalability for publishing online video. In addition, the company unveiled a complementary mpx Dev Kit for companies seeking to enhance and extend their online video platform capabilities.

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mpx Beta includes an entirely new and intuitive console for managing video assets; dramatically simplified and faster processes to publish large video libraries across the Web, mobile devices, and set-top-boxes; and advanced personalization features. In addition, the new publishing system is built on a new service oriented architecture (SOA) that provides additional reliability and scalability.

"We're resetting the bar today," said Ian Blaine, co-founder and CEO of thePlatform. "Our job is to anticipate and provide solutions that enable our customers to evolve their video businesses in the years ahead. mpx represents the culmination of all of our learning over the past 10 years, and we've applied the full resources of the company to develop an easy, streamlined and robust new system to meet the increasingly complex needs of the market."

Several of mpx Beta's capabilities represent a marked departure from the conventional approaches traditionally used by "white-label" video service providers. For example, most online video platforms use a basic, linear process for managing and publishing video on an individual basis. While this standard approach was sufficient during the formative years of the online video industry, mpx Beta delivers more efficient and time-saving methods to serve companies with extensive video libraries, syndication requirements and increasingly complex needs.

Unlike other systems, mpx Beta allows customers to upload multiple media files simultaneously and easily distribute video to Web sites, mobile phones and other IP devices – including the newly released Apple iPad. mpx Beta also uses a new and highly efficient, non-linear "publishing profile" that considers a video's destination point first – in effect, reversing the common workflow. This unique "smart publishing" methodology automates the required steps for video management, including file creation, transcoding, thumbnail generation and more. In the end, this intuitive design eases video publishing requirements, simplifies the process, and makes the system more accessible to a broader set of users.

"As the online on-demand video market matures, thePlatform is continuing to move with the times with the launch of mpx Beta and mpx Dev Kit," said Adrian Drury, principal analyst, Media, Broadcast and Telecoms, Ovum. "mpx Beta delivers important user interface and content management enhancements that will help content owners and programmers respond to a growing number of channels and platforms, and enable a wider range of non-technical editors and service managers to use thePlatform's ingest and publishing tools. As for the mpx Dev Kit, if there is a truth in the OVP market, it is that the technical and business requirements of no two media companies are the same. The Dev Kit makes thePlatform's 10 years of experience in this market available as a library of APIs, and this creates some exciting opportunities for process automation and service innovation. The premium Web video market is growing but the supply chain is becoming more complex. thePlatform is building on its heritage to provide an enhanced set of tools to meet this challenge."

mpx Beta Features

mpx Beta enables customers to efficiently manage large video libraries more efficiently with personalized user workflows and smart publishing profiles for easy distribution to Web sites, mobile phones and IP-connected devices. Key features include:

• Increased efficiency. Editors and producers have new tools for previewing videos, assigning the requisite metadata to video files, adding business policies, and making publishing easy. Users can quickly upload multiple media files, apply new filter and search features to create specific views, and access files faster through a brand new console with an intuitive user interface (UI).
• Personalization features. Editors and producers can customize their video or media lists by adding/removing columns for quick assessment and sorting establish specific metadata schemas with configurable panels and custom fields, and save optimal system management views with a new shortcut tool.
• Smart publish profiles. Customers can easily distribute video to Web sites, mobile phones and other IP devices with a few clicks. New publishing profiles consider consumer endpoints first and automate the required steps—including file creation, transcoding, and thumbnail generation—for video delivery.

mpx Dev Kit Features

mpx Dev Kit offers programmatic capabilities to manage the complete video publishing lifecycle with standardized APIs, complete documentation and extensive code samples. It enables customers to access the underlying services of mpx Beta to extend its capabilities. Features include:

• Video lifecycle management. Customers can easily ingest media directly into the system through thePlatform's Watch Folders, Feed Reader, and custom ingest adapters; access complete control over media objects, metadata, policies, advertising, and more; publish media with pre-configured publishing profiles to simplify media delivery to any outlet; and use notifications to receive immediate insight into the process.
• Standardized APIs. REST interfaces provide standard calls, including POST, GET, DELETE and PUT. Groovy scripts can be used to build custom ingest adapters, and Java clients make connecting to the mpx services easy.
• Complete documentation. Extensive documentation guides customers with step-by-step instructions, overviews of different services, and detailed code samples. Procedures cover each required service interaction to accomplish tasks, and code samples are provided to speed development time.

Underlying mpx Beta and the mpx Dev Kit is a new service-oriented architecture (SOA) in which each feature is created based upon its task within the larger whole, resulting in greater reliability and easier scalability for customers. Any media objects added, changed, or managed in thePlatform's legacy media publishing system (mps) will seamlessly be reflected in mpx Beta, without additional system or service deployments. Customers can use mpx Beta with the wide variety of other online video tools offered by thePlatform (mps) and its ecosystem of partners. These services include optimized content delivery network (CDN) policies, advertising campaign system integration, support for all major video playback technologies such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and others, reporting capabilities and more.

mpx Beta and mpx Dev Kit are being offered to existing customers at no additional charge, and additional features and capabilities will be added throughout the year. In addition, thePlatform provides robust customer support, including professional services, account management, and industry-leading 24/7 technical support.

Ten Years of Innovation and Service

"Ten years ago there were many questions about how video would be delivered, monetized and consumed," said Blaine. "We formed our company on the premise that those questions would be answered differently by the individual customers we serve, and we built a platform designed to address them. Today, these same questions remain, but our ability to answer them has expanded dramatically. In 2010 and beyond, consumers will be watching more video with longer durations across an evolving ecosystem of devices. Our customers, in turn, want to reach larger audiences to drive revenues and increase brand loyalty. mpx will enable them to address this growing opportunity in the years ahead."

thePlatform publishes video and other media to PCs, mobile devices, and TV. Media companies rely on thePlatform as their open, central hub for managing, monetizing and syndicating billions of professionally produced video views annually. thePlatform currently provides online video management services to numerous programmers, leading media companies, and five of the top cable TV service providers in North America, including the largest "TV Everywhere" deployments.

Additional information about mpx Beta and mpx Dev Kit is available at www.thePlatform.com.

About thePlatform

thePlatform™ is the leading white-label video management and publishing company. Media companies rely on thePlatform as their open, central hub for managing, monetizing, and syndicating billions of professionally produced video views annually. The company's services provide unmatched versatility for designing and supporting video businesses on PCs, mobile, and TV. Customers include: Associated Press, BBC, Big Ten Network, Cablevision, CBS College Sports, CNBC, Comcast, Corus Entertainment, Cox Communications, ExerciseTV, Fox Sports Network, HIT Entertainment, NBC Local Media, PBS, PBS KIDS Sprout, Rogers, Sony BMG, Starz Play, Time Warner Cable, Travel Channel Media, and numerous others. With a 10-year history of service, thePlatform is an independent subsidiary of Comcast based in Seattle, Wash. For more information: www.theplatform.com.

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