euro news_news 21/05/2015 18:34 Page 3
V-Nova claims
compression
paradigm rewrite
merging from ‘stealth’ mode as it
refined its technology over a fiveyear period with a range of
industry partners, video compression
specialist V-Nova has released a number
of products based on its PERSEUS
technology, claiming its performance
shifts the entire video bitrate-quality
curve, offering UHD quality at HD
bitrates, HD at SD bitrates, and SD video
at audio bitrates.
PERSEUS has been developed and tested
over the past five years within an Open
Innovation consortium of over 20 global
industry leaders including Broadcom, European
Broadcasting Union (EBU), Hitachi Data
Systems (HDS), Intel, and Sky Italia. PERSEUS
is currently offered in the form of appliances,
embedded software and codec plug-ins.
E
Broadcasters call for
EU DTT spectrum
recognition
Lobbying group Broadcast
Networks Europe (BNE),
under the banner of the
Wider Spectrum Group, sent
a Letter to President of the
European Commission, JeanClaude Juncker, as well as
to Vice-President Andrus
Ansip and Commissioner
Günther Oettinger to call for
recognition in the Digital
Single Market
communication of the
crucial role spectrum plays
for Terrestrial Broadcasting
alongside wireless and
mobile broadband.
BNE, as part of the Wider
Spectrum Group, called on
the European Commission to
10 EUROMEDIA
“With PERSEUS we
are able to shift the
entire bitrate-quality
curve. This allows our
partners to differentiate
their products, increase
market penetration, and
provide new services. In
particular,
PERSEUS makes 4K commercially
viable at scale, enables HD over
3G/4G mobile networks and makes
video available to millions who do not
yet have it. Most importantly,
PERSEUS achieves this within currently
available bandwidth and
infrastructure,” noted Guido
Meardi, CEO and founder, VNova, suggesting that this guaranteed rapid,
seamless deployment and an extremely high
return on investment.
“PERSEUS helps us solve challenges and
create opportunities not currently addressable
by existing compression solutions. Sky has been
working with V-Nova over the past years to
refine and test the PERSEUS technology to
ensure that it is industrially scalable and
integrates seamlessly into the existing ecosystem
provide long-term legal
certainty for sufficient
spectrum to be made
available for the Terrestrial
Broadcasting Service in
Europe.
According to the group,
the communication on the
Digital Single Market has little
reference to the work done by
the High Level Group guided
by Pascal Lamy, who
concluded that DTT
represents the backbone of
the EU audiovisual model and
whose report concluded that
there is a strong
socio-economic case
for co-existence
between Terrestrial
Broadcasting and
Mobile Broadband
Services.
BNE highlighted
the possible
consequences for the
creative sector which is
currently one of the EU top
three sectors by growth and
employment.
Commenting on the
initiative, Lars Backlund,
secretary general for BNE,
declared “Broadcast Networks
and workflows. We are currently deploying it
and are extremely satisfied with the results of
this joint effort. PERSEUS is an extremely
valuable asset for us,” stated Massimo Bertolotti,
head of innovation and engineering, Sky Italia.
“The step change in performance offered by
PERSEUS opens many opportunities for new
high-impact broadcast services that we are
contributing to develop,” noted Puiu
Dolea, manager of business continuity
and special projects at European
Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Rich Nelson, SVP, marketing,
broadband and connectivity group,
Broadcom Corporation, suggested that
combined with Broadcom’s settop box technology, PERSEUS
compression could help enable
more efficient HD transmissions and more
widespread Ultra HD content to subscribers
around the world.
Eric Achtmann, executive chairman and cofounder, V-Nova, said the PERSEUS consortium
was solving real-world challenges, at all quality
and bandwidth levels, using existing
infrastructure and workflows. “Together, we are
making ‘The Impossible’ possible, and ‘The
Possible’ more profitable,” he concluded.
Europe members invest in
state of the art digital
infrastructures for Europe.
DTT is the leading platform
for TV distribution in Europe
and plays a key role in the
European audiovisual
ecosystem, a major jobs
contributing sector. It is time
to take into account those
dimensions in the Digital
Single Market strategy,
building on the Lamy Report
conclusions.”
Vivendi plans €495m
Canal Plus buyout
French media group Vivendi
is offering €495m for a
controlling stake in pay-TV
operator Canal Plus (Société
d’Edition de Canal Plus).
Vivendi already owns
around 48.5% of the
company, and its
supervisory board has
approved a public tender
offer of €7.60 per share. It
says it is making the bid
“because a large number of
SECP’s shareholders have
requested it do so”.
The price offered for the
SECP shares represents an
implied premium of 20% over
the average trading price for
the last three months, 23.3%
over the average trading price
for the last six months, and
24.9% over the average
trading price for the last
twelve months.
Vivendi describes the
transaction as “friendly” and
aims to satisfy SECP’s
minority shareholders’
expectations by providing
them with liquidity, given that
Vivendi has sufficient cash to
successfully complete the
tender offer.
The outcome of the
proposed public tender offer
will not modify the control of
SECP by Vivendi, as Vivendi is
already the indirect
controlling shareholder of
SECP. The tender offer will
apply to all the outstanding
SECP shares not held by the
Vivendi group.
Vivendi is filing the tender
offer statement with the
Autorité des Marchés
Financiers (the French
securities regulator) AMF.