Magine Pro and Appear partner to upgrade Sappa’s distribution workflows

Media technology outfit Appear and the platform for B2B managed services for OTT Magine Pro, has been tapped by one of Sweden’s largest telecom operators Sappa to transform its OTT linear distribution media workflow to include fully on-premise transcoding.

Sappa has migrated its existing cloud-based workflow to Appear’s NEO20 on-premise live transcoding solution, bringing cost and performance efficiencies. The workflow fully integrates into Magine Pro’s Media Cloud Packaging and end-to-end OTT platform, leveraging the flexibility of resource provisioning and distribution from the cloud

Sappa has over 100 channels, providing broadband, telephony, Cable/IPTV and streaming services to over 400,000 customers. The two companies have been technology partners since 2017 after Magine Pro delivered Sappa an end-to-end OTT platform as an add-on to its existing IPTV offering.

The new partnership brings together broadcast-grade media workflow capabilities from Appear’s NEO20, including on-premise ABR transcoding using HLS Push to the AWS Media Package cloud service, while handling SCTE35 signalling (for downstream ad insertion) and subtitle conversion across the transcode process. Magine takes over the media delivery chain with just-in-time packaging with DRM, 7-day catch-up and start over capabilities, SCTE35 server-side ad-insertion and client-side ad-signaling, and full OTT solution delivery.

“The main objective of the Magine Pro OTT platform is to scale our partners’ services into successful growth. The collaboration with Appear achieves this, by providing partners like Sappa the ability to select and integrate into a best-in-class vendor ecosystem while continuing to leverage the core OTT cloud platform and applications provided by Magine Pro”, said Matthew Wilkinson, CEO at Magine Pro. “Working closely with our partners helps Magine Pro push technology boundaries, resulting in strong and sustainable partnerships.”

“The cloud is a great fit for fast-time-to-market OTT deployments, however for live 24/7/365 processing-hungry applications like ABR transcoding, the cloud is not a cost-effective solution,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO at Appear. “In order to save cost, and to have an easy upgrade path, our NEO20 transcoding servers provide the flexibility and reliability Sappa needs to take live transcoding for OTT back on-premise. We’re pleased to extend our partnership with Magine Pro and Sappa and are committed to being an integral technology partner for many years to come.”