Adobe Advances Broadcast Creation to Delivery Workflows at IBC 2011

Posted by Jim Guerard, Vice President and General Manager for Professional Video at Adobe

This week the Adobe video solutions team is over in Amsterdam at IBC, Europe’s largest show for broadcasters. We announced new video delivery solutions and we’re highlighting our recent momentum that enables media professionals to create, deliver, and monetize premium video more efficiently and across more platforms and devices. Adobe is committed to helping our customers and partners streamline their entire creation to delivery video workflows for any screen and ultimately – help them find new ways to monetize content.

The team is showcasing new products, customer wins and initiatives this week, here are what I see as the highlights:

New Releases of Flash Media Server and Flash Access to Stream and Protect Content for Virtually Any Device

• On the delivery side, Adobe continues to innovate on new, streamlined workflows for businesses to stream and protect premium content to an array of devices, including iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Adobe is announcing that Flash Media Server 4.5 can now deliver Flash technology to Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Additionally Flash Access 3.0 takes its robust content protection solution to Android, the first of many mobile platforms.

Rapid Customer and Partner Adoption of Adobe Pass Content Authentication

• Adobe Pass is a leading authentication solution that enables media companies to verify a user’s entitlement to content online based on their pay TV subscription package. We’re pleased that Adobe Pass now supports the top US pay TV providers – approximately 90 percent of all US pay TV households – and is being quickly adopted by TV programmers and media companies like Fox and CNN.

Acquisition of IRIDAS Color-grading Technology

• Enhanced color-grading is a top requested feature by our Production Premium customers and in continuing our commitment to the professional video space, Adobe has announced the acquisition of IRIDAS and its flagship product SpeedGrade, a toolset for Stereo 3D, RAW processing, color grading and finishing of digital content. With the addition of IRIDAS, Production Premium is expected to gain a comprehensive set of tools so video editors can manipulate color and light for any type of content, including professional film and television.

Strong Momentum with CS5.5 Production Premium –

• Groundbreaking features and performance in CS5.5 caused demand to surge for our professional video creation tools, growing 22 percent year-over-year, with 45 percent growth on the Mac, in part fueled by the large number of Apple Final Cut Pro customers switching to Adobe Premiere Pro and taking advantage of our Switcher offer.
• Leading U.K. broadcaster ITV has selected Adobe Story, Production Premium’s collaborative script development tool, to manage pre-production of over 500 episodes per year of the popular programs Coronation Street and Emmerdale. *link to ITV release
• A strategic alliance between Adobe and the University of Salford in England will bring Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium to all of Salford’s 39 new media and TV courses as part of MediaCityUK, an initiative to grow a new media hub for content creation in the northwest of England.