Rapid adoption by leading post production facilities further bolstered with new version and configurations

Digital Rapids has begun shipping the latest enhancements to the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager(tm) family of distributed media transcoding software. Version 1.1 of Transcode Manager FE (Facility Edition) is bolstered with new features including server-level failover, clip manipulation and support for third-party databases including Oracle 10g ®, Microsoft ® SQL Server 2005 and PostgreSQL. Meanwhile, the new Transcode Manager LE offers the same exceptional performance, load balancing intelligence and ease of use in a lower-cost configuration tailored for customers without enterprise-level requirements.
"Just as Digital Rapids’ ingest and encoding systems have been at the foundation of our digital media workflow for years, Transcode Manager now forms the backbone of our media transcoding workflows," said Kevin Froning, Director of Engineering at leading compression services facility Global Digital Media Xchange, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. "The productivity, quality, output precision and enterprise-class integration capabilities of Transcode Manager provide extensive benefits as the demands on our transcoding services grow exponentially, while its scalability will allow it to grow with our future needs."

Transcode Manager FE and Transcode Manager LE provide centralized management, automation and load balancing for high-volume, multi-format transcoding workflows, increasing production volume while reducing operational costs. A Transcode Manager server works in conjunction with multiple Transcode Engines, intelligently assigning jobs for optimal throughput. Both versions go beyond standard load balancing by "learning" which Transcode Engines are most efficient for each type of encoding and allocating jobs accordingly. Additional features common to both configurations include multiple watch folder support, job-level failover, failure alert notification and automatic node detection for easy deployment. Transcode Manager LE supports up to 10 Transcode Engines, while Transcode Manager FE is fully scalable to an unlimited number. (For more details, please see the April 16 announcement press release.)

"With the release of Transcode Manager LE, smaller studios and workgroups can now realize the same quality, reliability and throughput benefits that leading broadcast networks, large studios, user-contributed content communities and post production facilities have gained from Transcode Manager FE since its introduction last year," said Brick Eksten, President of Digital Rapids Corporation. "Meanwhile, the new version 1.1 features further entrench Transcode Manager FE as the transcoding solution of choice for such enterprise-class customers."

The complete line of Digital Rapids products will be showcased at IBC 2007 in booth number 7.641. For more information on Digital Rapids products, please visit www.digital-rapids.com