• mPoint Becomes Panvidea, Streamlines Video Preparation and Post Production Processes

    Yesterday mPoint, which had been a cloud-based video encoding platform,  re-launched as Panvidea, with an expanded focus on streamlining video preparation and the post-production process for professional media companies. Panvidea also announced new customers A&E Television Networks, Fox Broadcasting and Getty Images.  Chris Cali, CEO and co-founder and Doug Heise, VP of Marketing brought me up to speed and gave me a demo last week. 


    Panvidea has done extensive product development to differentiate it from other on-demand, cloud-based encoding providers. The company is positioning itself as a full-scale alternative to expensive post-production house services or as an augment for customers who have some digital video preparation capabilities in-house but want to limit their additional capital outlays. Panvidea has expanded its offering to include a full suite of ingest, editing, encoding, metadata management, formatting, subtitling, and packaging/distribution to multiple platforms. 


    Chris explained that cloud-based video preparation services like Panvidea are gaining steam as media companies look to reduce the complexity and cost they are encountering in the broadband era. The proliferation of outlets and formats is making the preparation process more involved than ever. 


    In particular, Chris said that with Panvidea as an option, companies that are still relying on tape-based work flows can leapfrog the step of building out digital infrastructure and instead move directly to cloud-based services. Chris cited direct response TV companies as one such example. They have extensive needs to update phone #s, switch out offers and modify their distribution, both on-air and online. A  number of DRTV companies are now using Panvidea for these work flows, bypassing expensive post-production houses they traditionally used. 


    Panvidea has also enhanced its system performance and changed its pricing model to emphasize HD quality video. The company is no longer pricing based on gigabytes in and gigabytes out; instead it is simply pricing on the basis of number of hours of video output. That change is important so that customers are not in effect penalized for wanting to do higher bit-rate (and therefore larger file) encoding. 


    Panvidea is further proof that even as online video consumption expands and complexity grows, the network is getting more robust, allowing traditionally high-end, expensive services to be delivered online. This self-reinforcing loop suggests that the quality and quantity of video moving online is poised for continued rapid growth.


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