Utilizing MediaKind and third-party encoding and delivery technologies, Engage gives organizers a platform to focus on their vision without worrying about the behind-the-scenes technology.

Mark Ramberg, Group Vice President, Products at MediaKind, said the Engage software stack is designed to enable content providers to expand their reach and bring their content to viewers around the world—all without having to worry about deploying expensive infrastructure. MediaKind Engage and Microsoft Azure has all of the tools and remote processing they need.

“The TV industry continues to evolve at an accelerated pace and they’re all looking to engage viewers,” said Ramberg. “What they are looking for is solutions to quickly and easily bring large-scale live events to their global streaming audiences, in broadcast quality, while also maximizing return on investment.”

Customers want to focus on delivering content to viewers, but in a way that doesn’t require large capital expense and significant manpower to build out the necessary infrastructure, Ramberg said. They need agility at scale and at the highest quality, no matter what device their viewers are watching.

“The reality is that the viewing expectations around quality of service and the streaming world has skyrocketed,” he said. “Everyone expects it to be as good or better than cable and satellite TV services, and to include all of the innovation that large players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are now offering their subscribers.”

Engage is hyper-targeted at regional video service providers looking to deliver live events globally in a tightly integrated package of microservices that creates a good experience for viewers. It’s made up of three MediaKind services: Engage Production (Content acquisition and distribution); Engage Publishing (Channel origination and streaming); and Engage Experience (Fan engagement and client applications).

Offered in a monthly or yearly SaaS model, it takes the guesswork out of capturing and delivering the best content sources from an event and transporting it reliably and securely to the cloud for further delivery around the world.

Engage Production, in particular, facilitates cloud-based production and auto-curation workflows while automatically managing every element from live to VOD and all associated metadata.

“What we’re seeing now is more and more broadcasters and content owners that want to reach outside of their local regions,” Ramberg said. “Historically that’s been a very difficult thing to do. With this direct-to-consumer model, we’re giving them the global reach that they didn’t have before and might have been prohibitively expensive.”

MediaKind Engage is now available in a variety of customizable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models, embracing agile tools to develop and add new features faster. It enables new OTT innovations to be launched with greater control, as the services are already deployed and rigorously tested with all cloud providers.

The solution brings together MediaKind’s expertise in operating advanced video and cloud workflows and is complemented with fully integrated, third-party solutions to meet the demands for high-volume, high-quality video and data services.

The company said MediaKind Engage opens up new avenues for content owners to experiment with fan engagement techniques and methods of monetization while enabling consumers to curate and personalize their content experience.

MediaKind Engage delivers high-quality OTT delivery and live user engagement through web conferencing applications. Fully deployed in the Azure, MediaKind Engage provides a high quality, cost effective solution for media-based events. It’s designed to handle everything from billing to configuring content for the wide variety of end user devices in the market. Utilizing industry leading encoding, delivery technologies and interactive platforms, MediaKind Engage give organizers a platform to realize their vision without worrying about the technology.

Deploying all applications in Azure ensures secure management of assets from file upload to ingest and publishing on the platform. Engage also uses industry standard DRM from Apple, Google and Microsoft to provide stream security across all devices.

“MediaKind is coming at this problem from a different perspective from other streaming products and service vendors,” Ramberg said. “One that has the highest broadcast quality as the expectation for everyone involved. MediaKind has decades of experience and credibility in the Broadcast TV industry. With Engage, we’re now bringing that expertise to the streaming world.”