Nevada City, Calif., August 13, 2010 – Telestream, the leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, today announced the execution of a definitive agreement to acquire the business operations of the Anystream division of Grab Networks. The combination will further extend Telestream’s position in the software video transcoding market and significantly enhance the company’s ability to provide enterprise-class, file-based and live encoding solutions across the globe.

Dulles, VA – May 19, 2010 – Anystream®, the leading provider of automated multi-platform media publishing solutions, today announced that Agility 2G and Avalon products will produce VP8 video in support of the WebM initiative. 

“A key factor in the web’s success is that its core technologies are open and freely implementable. Video is fundamental to the web experience, and developers and content publishers need an open video format option,” said Mike Jazayeri, Group Product Manager at Google. “We are excited Grab Networks is joining a broad coalition of industry leaders supporting the WebM project to bring a new era of open innovation in web video.”

 “Avalon with VP8 automates media packaging for on-line distribution to YouTube.” said Jim Duval, Director of Product Management at Anystream.  “Avalon eliminates the complexity of manually assembling and validating media, metadata, graphics and other media elements that are required by YouTube and other digital media distribution outlets.”

Agility 2G automates and streamlines content production and delivery for television, web and mobile media applications.  In a single workflow, Avalon assembles and validates commercial metadata that is seen in the promotions and displays on video portals, electronic storefronts and electronic program guides.  Avalon also converts media into the specified formats and packages the content with the metadata into media products that conform to all of the delivery requirements.

Shipment of Agility 2G with VP8 will begin in the second half of 2010.

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About Anystream:

Anystream is part of a merger formed by Anystream and Voxant, creating Grab Networks™. The company powers multi-platform video syndication for content on three screens. It allows media companies to efficiently re-purpose and index their content for multiple outlets and devices, syndicate their content across their own properties and third-party destinations, and better capitalize on the $20 billion online advertising market with an award-winning suite of solutions, including grabMediaOS™, Anystream Agility and Anystream Avalon. More information on Anystream can be found at http://www.anystream.com.

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Media Contact:

Jim Duval
Director of Product Management
Anystream A Division of Grab Networks
c:        +1.617. 803. 2696

jduval@grabnetworks.com

Avalon receives source media and metadata and formats both into compliant video and commercial metadata bundles that are ready for distribution as on-line and cable VOD media products.  Avalon automates the entire workflow to increase output capacity, while improving content and metadata accuracy and quality.

“Producing video for the Flash Platform with HTTP Dynamic Streaming is an important evolution for our customers,” said Jim Duval, director of product management at Anystream.  “Adobe’s strategy of providing backward compatibility with the existing high-quality codecs such as H.264 and VP6 enables instant conversion by content networks to the new format.  We anticipate immediate demand, and therefore Agility 2G will support Adobe with the roll out of HTTP Dynamic Streaming.”

“We are pleased to have Anystream’s support for HTTP Dynamic Streaming,” said Scott Wellwood, director of business development for Dynamic Media at Adobe.  “Anystream’s advanced workflows for live streaming, grid processing and catch-up TV offer a unique solution for rapid distribution of content delivered on the Flash Platform, providing a high-quality online viewing experience.”

Agility 2G automates and streamlines the production and delivery of multiple bit-rate versions of media created for Adobe Flash technology for HTTP Dynamic Streaming distribution partners.  Anystream tests Agility 2G in cooperation with CDN partners Akamai, Limelight and Internap to ensure compatibility with the major distribution networks.  HTTP Dynamic Streaming augments existing Flash-enabled codecs such as H.264, HE-AAC, VP6 and MPD available with Agility 2G.

Shipment of Agility 2G with support for HTTP Dynamic Streaming will begin in the second half of 2010.

About Anystream:

Anystream is part of a merger formed by Anystream and Voxant, creating Grab Networks™. The company powers multi-platform video syndication for content on three screens. It allows media companies to efficiently re-purpose and index their content for multiple outlets and devices, syndicate their content across their own properties and third-party destinations, and better capitalize on the $20 billion online advertising market with an award-winning suite of solutions, including grabMediaOS™, Anystream Agility and Anystream Avalon. More information on Anystream can be found at http://www.anystream.com.

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Media Contact:

Jim Duval
Director of Product Management
Anystream A Division of Grab Networks

phone: 781 547 5407
c:        +1.617. 803. 2696

email:  jduval@grabnetworks.com

In addition to generating iPad-compatible MP4 files Anystream’s Agility product, an end-to-end platform for automated media production, also supports the creation of segmented HTTP Live Streaming video files. HTTP Live Streaming provides instant playback, smooth interaction and adaptive bit-rate selection using ordinary HTTP servers. Agility integrates the required segmentation and the creation of .m3u8 index files into a streamlined workflow. Apple recommends using HTTP Live Streaming for long form video for both HTML5-based web pages and apps that stream video and limit the use of MP4 files for short form and iTunes synced media.

According to Anystream President and General Manager Bill Holding, “Streaming video to mobile devices is a major video delivery platform. With Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming architecture we fully support Wi-Fi and 3G streaming video delivery to iPad and iPhones.

“With the integrated support of HTTP Live Streaming, Agility can be used to simultaneously generate media for the HTML5-based Apple iPad and platforms using Adobe Flash-based players.”

Anystream’s HTTP Live Streaming encoding is being shown at NAB 2010 on Booth SL2010.
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About Anystream:
Anystream is part of a merger formed by Anystream, Voxant, Grab Networks™, which together power multi-platform video syndication for content on three screens. It allows media companies to efficiently re-purpose and index their content for multiple outlets and devices, syndicate their content across their own properties and 3rd party destinations, and better capitalise on the $20 billion online advertising market with an award-winning suite of solutions, including grabMediaOS™, Anystream Agility, and Anystream Velocity. Further information on Anystream can be found at www.anystream.com

According to Anystream President and General Manager Bill Holding, “Encoding video properly is not enough. Increasingly, the challenges also involve metadata. The key is to ensure that metadata associated with media is pristine, comprehensive and flawlessly delivered, along with the media itself. That is what we provide with Avalon, a next-generation metadata and workflow management system that perfectly blends content production and packaging; multiple outlet delivery; and flexible distribution requirements.”

With Avalon, content can be highly customized with automated packaging of metadata, videos, images and other content files for distribution to meet the requirements of each distribution outlet.

Avalon supports most popular distribution outlets through its flexible ADM framework, which supports many industry standard specification formats (CableLabs, MRSS) as well as outlet-specific formats such as iTunes™, Hulu™, YouTube™ and many others.

Users frequently need a customized framework tailored to their own business requirements. Avalon can easily be configured to match an existing specification or create a customized metadata format.

Adaptation to custom workflows and navigating ever-changing format specifications are also critical to business success. Avalon can be programmed through a service oriented architecture (SOA, web services API) to create customized workflows to address evolving business needs.

When distributing to a wide variety of outlets, the required metadata elements can increase dramatically. Avalon empowers users to customize values so they are only inputting data that is absolutely needed.

Status, event, error, and user interaction events can also be logged to a centralized utility. Administrators can access all logging data from a browser at any time to determine the overall health of the system.

Anystream Avalon is accessible through a new web-based user interface that provides a simple and intuitive interface for all administration, submission, status and management tasks, and which runs in most popular, standard web browsers to provide qualified users with remote access to all systems functions at all times.

Other Anystream Avalon benefits include stateless management, which ensures that processes continue even after individual failures; floating licenses which improve system redundancy and reduce costs; screens that are XML-driven enable dynamic UI customizations; web services API provides vital customization; standard profiles for a wide number of common distribution outlets get content into correct formats; and an extensible framework allows for easy customization of existing profiles, or creation of a new profile.

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About Anystream:

Every day, the world’s leading media and entertainment companies turn to Anystream to publish rich media and unlock the value of their content. In 1999 Anystream pioneered the concept of automated, digital media production and publishing. In 2010, Anystream is launching its next generation of platform, which supports the mission critical content requirements of content owners in more than 40 countries. Anystream specializes in multi-platform publishing and our customers rely on us to prepare their content for delivery on air, on the Web, on-demand, on mobile and other personal media devices. Further information on Anystream can be found at www.anystream.com

Press contact:

David Cunningham
Manor Marketing
Tel: + 44 (0) 1420 544242
Email: david@manormarketing.tv

According to Anystream Director of Product Management Jim Duval, “These new initiatives remove many of the current obstacles to an integrated workflow by automating numerous time-consuming processes. This in turn increases efficiency, saves money and conserves resources. Agility 2G continues to evolve as the industry’s most robust and efficient platform for multi-platform video content syndication.”

In terms of content packaging and metadata processing, the “Avalon” extension to the Agility platform automates the packaging of both metadata and media to provide a cost effective, scalable, and automated process for delivering full content packages to a growing number of syndication outlets and platforms from a single video and metadata source. The Avalon extension addresses the challenges of adapting and transforming metadata to meet the specific requirements of each unique platform and distribution outlet.

Anystream will also demonstrate the ability of Agility 2G to manage the complexities of international content distribution.  With a growing ecosystem of industry- leading technology partners, Agility 2G automation provides a seamless workflow that enables media companies to address the challenges of delivering content in any file based SD/HD world with hands-off operations and rapid turnaround. Highlighted components include virtual Agility 2G running on Amazon.com EC2; Agility 2G dynamic content editing to remove advertising breaks; Digital Vision standards conversion; Dolby audio processing for Dolby E, Dolby Pulse,  and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound audio; Adobe Flash Rendering system for graphics overlay; and Softel for open and closed caption generation.

Anystream Agility 2G also now enables HD broadcast content production with full VANC processing and synthesis up to five times faster than real-time.   The new VANC processing pipeline resolves incompatibilities between VANC data stored natively on broadcast servers and data within Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD non-linear editors for full file-based workflows.

Finally, Agility 2G adds IP video to its list of universal ingest sources.  Agility 2G now receives IP transport streams and transcodes for live and on-demand playback.  The inherent reliability and cost benefits of blade and virtual server technology can now be applied to video production.

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About Anystream:

Anystream is part of a merger formed by Anystream, Voxant, Grab Networks™, which together power multi-platform video syndication for content on three screens. It allows media companies to efficiently re-purpose and index their content for multiple outlets and devices, syndicate their content across their own properties and 3rd party destinations, and better capitalise on the $20 billion online advertising market with an award-winning suite of solutions, including grabMediaOS™, Anystream Agility, and Anystream Velocity. Further information on Anystream can be found at www.anystream.com

Press contact:

David Cunningham

Manor Marketing

Tel:  + 44 (0) 1420 544242

Email: david@manormarketing.tv