| Type | Subsidiary (of Comcast) |
|---|---|
| Founded | Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Key people | Ian Blaine (CEO) |
| Industry | Online Media Management Services |
| Employees | 130 |
| Website | thePlatform |
thePlatform is a Seattle, WA-based online video publishing company, which was acquired by Comcast in 2006.[1] Founded in 2000 by Ian Blaine, Alan Ramaley, Rahul Sonnad, and Andrew Olson, the company works with digital media companies to manage and publish video and audio.
Contents |
thePlatform was founded in 2000 by Ian Blaine, Andrew Olson, Alan Ramaley, and Rahul Sonnad. Previously, in 1998, Blaine founded an online personal information management company, Uniplanet, which was acquired by NBCi in 1999.
thePlatform offers two video management platforms, mpx Beta, and their legacy, Media Publishing System (mps). thePlatform released mpx Beta in February 2010, but still offers customers access to the legacy mps system. thePlatform's third product is the mpx Dev Kit.
mpx Beta is a SaaS tool which allows users to manage online video content.
The mpx Dev Kit allows access to thePlatform's REST-based application programming interfaces (APIs).
thePlatform's Media Publishing System (mps) is composed of four sub-products, mpsManage, mpsConnect, mpsPresent, and mpsExperts.
mpsManage is thePlatform's suite of products centered around publishing online and mobile video. mpsManage includes:
Ingest Service tools for programmatically (or manually) uploading media into thePlatform's management console
Management Console An interface for managing media. Functions of the Console include application of meta-data, application of business policies, and publishing media.
Transcoding Service thePlatform hosts their own transcoding service, available in either a standard farm, or dedicated boxes.
Remote Media Processor For large tasks, thePlatform can deploy a Remote Media Processor.
mps Software Development Kit thePlatform allows for development against their APIs.
CDN and Storage Services CDN and Storage fees integrated into thePlatform's system.
mpsConnect is thePlatform's name for their syndication and distribution services.
mpsPresent is thePlatform's suite of products centered around video display.
Feeds Service A subscription service for online video syndication.
Player Designer A WYSIWYG broadband video player development console.
Player Development Kit Flash-based broadband video development kit.
Community Toolkit A console for application of community features to broadband video.
thePlatform's professional services and technical support offerings.
In June 2006, Comcast purchased the Seattle-based software company thePlatform. This represented Comcast's entry into a new line of business, selling software to allow companies to manage their Internet (and IP-based) media publishing efforts.
Customers of thePlatform include BBC Worldwide,[2] PBS,[3] CNBC, CBS College Sports, AP, NBC Local, and HiT Entertainment. thePlatform used to provide video management for Hulu, the joint venture by NBC Universal and News Corporation providing on-demand, ad-supported television programming owned by NBC, Universal Studios, and Fox Tv.
thePlatform's video publishing system, mpx can enable customers to publish video to over-the-top (OTT) services and IP-connected set-top boxes, TVs and Blu-ray Players, and online services from companies including Boxee, DivX, Free Stream Media, Mitsubishi, LG, Roku, Samsung, Syabas, TiVo, Toshiba, VUDU, VIZIO and others.[4]
|
|||||||||||||||||