Synamedia Joins the Alliance for Open Media

The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) today announced that Synamedia, the world’s largest independent video software provider, has joined at the Promoter level. As a member of the Alliance, Synamedia will collaborate with AOMedia members, which include fellow leading internet and media technology companies, to advance open standards for media compression and delivery over the web. Synamedia’s video network portfolio features video distribution, processing, and delivery services, and solutions to power premium quality broadcast and broadband video, create compelling live multi-screen experiences, enable software-defined video processing and unify operations.

AOMedia members include industry leaders like Amazon, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics, and Tencent.

The availability of AOMedia Video Codec 1.0 (AV1), AOMedia’s open-source, royalty-free video coding format, is a significant milestone in the journey to deliver a next-generation video format. AV1 is interoperable, open, optimized for internet delivery and scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth. AV1 enables more screens to display the vivid images, deeper colors, brighter highlights, darker shadows, and other enhanced UHD imaging features that consumers and businesses have come to expect – all while using less data.

“We’re thrilled to join AOMedia. As customers make more intelligent use of virtualization and cloud, we see the adoption of AV1 as a way to further our own goals of enhancing online video streaming experiences for OTT at scale. We look forward to working alongside AOMedia members to open up new possibilities to use AV1 for royalty-free, cross-platform online video across a wide range of applications,” said Julien Signes, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Video Network at Synamedia.

“We’re excited to have Synamedia as our newest member, reflecting our joint commitment to increase the openness and interoperability of internet video,” said Matt Frost, AOMedia Vice President of Communications and Membership, and Director at Google. “Synamedia brings to AOMedia a long history of live encoding and OTT delivery for major content distributors. We look forward to collaborating to improve the quality and availability of streaming video with AV1.”

Designed at the outset for hardware optimization, the AV1 specification, reference code, and bindings are available for toolmakers and developers to download here to begin designing AV1 into products. Specifically, the release of AV1 includes:

  • Bitstream specification to enable the next generation of silicon
  • Unoptimized, experimental software decoder and encoder to create and consume the bitstream
  • Reference streams for product validation
  • Binding specifications to allow content creation and streaming tools for user-generated and commercial video

About Synamedia

We’re helping service and content providers around the world to deliver, protect and monetize video content so they can win in the age of Infinite Entertainment. We do that with the world’s most complete, secure and advanced end-to-end open video delivery solution. Our portfolio features award-winning video network services, best-in-class anti-piracy solutions and intelligence, and video platforms with fully-integrated capabilities including cloud DVR and advanced advertising. And we’re trusted by over 200 top satellite DTH, cable, telco and OTT operators, broadcasters and media companies. Synamedia is backed by the Permira funds and Sky.

About the Alliance for Open Media

Launched in 2015, the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) was formed to define and develop media technologies to address marketplace demand for an open standard for video compression and delivery over the web. Board-level, Founding Members include Amazon, Apple, Arm, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics, and Tencent. AOMedia’s open-source, royalty-free, video codec AV1 is a significant milestone in the ability to deliver a next-generation video format that is interoperable, open, optimized for internet delivery and scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth.